Lucy's Reviews > Pachinko

“Living everyday in the presence of those who refuse to acknowledge your humanity takes great courage.”

Wow! What a sweeping, beautiful and heartbreaking novel this was. An emotional read about exile, discrimination, identity and generational/cultural expectations. This book follows a four-generational family, originally from Korea, living in Japan.
It shows how our decisions can have an effect on many things in our future lives.

This book first takes place in Korea, 1911. It starts with a couple who have one child, their beloved daughter Sunja. When Sunja is enamored by a local yakuza: Hanku, she soon falls pregnant and unbeknownst to her, after the discovery of pregnancy, she learns that Hanku is already married and with his own children. Due to the highly placed value of female virginity in Korea, the family faces ruin from Sunja's pregnancy. But then a Christian minister offers a chance of salvation for the family: a new life in Japan as his wife.

To bring salvation to herself and to her family, Sunja follows the minister to Japan to live in a hostile country. Here she faces severe discrimination from the Japanese for being Korean. She moves to a country where she has no friends or home. The book then details her life and those of her family's over the generations.

This book details the tensions of being Korean in Japan and how this is maintained over generations. It shows a part of history that is not always mentioned and not that well known. While the character's struggle with their identity in a hostile country, it shows determination to persevere and endure.