I'm Gilbert Cruz, editor of the New York Times Book Review and this is the Book Review podcast Special Edition.

This summer, in addition to our regular episodes, we'll have a series of interviews with authors

whose books made our list of the 100 best books of the 21st century so far.

Last week you heard Colson Whitehead talking about the Underground Railroad.

This week I'm so happy to be joined by Min Jin Lee, author of Pachinko.

Men, thank you for being here.

Oh, Gilbert, it's so fun to be here.

Now, Min, Pachinko is a sweeping novel about several generations of Koreans who through various circumstances find themselves living in Japan.

First during the free World War II moments when Korea was still a Japanese colony and then in the post World War II moment when Korea was split in two and then for many decades after it starts starts in 1910, it ends in 1989. I'm curious what time

period did the book actually start in your head the first time you started writing

this when you really dug into Pachinka what

you hear were the characters actually in this is so embarrassing it's embarrassing because I got the idea for the book where I learned about the Koreans in Japan

when I was 19 years old so that means that's 1989. I started working on the book itself in 1996 and then I wrote a whole draft and it was

garbage and so I abandoned it and I started other things.

So that's 1989.

Big year for you, big year for Taylor Swift.

So that's when you started writing it.

But what year were the characters?

Was it always set in 1910?

Did it always begin in 1910?

No, it actually was going to be in the 70s and 80s and 90s.

So my initial draft called Motherland, there was no Sanja.

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