Literary Odyssey: Reading Group

Our July fiction reading group choice is ‘Pachinko’ by Min Jin Lee. A sprawling multi-generational saga of a Korean family living in Japan.

‘Spanning nearly 100 years and moving from Korea at the start of the 20th century to pre- and postwar Osaka and, finally, Tokyo and Yokohama, the novel reads like a long, intimate hymn to the struggles of people in a foreign land. Min Jin Lee meticulously reconstructs the relatively overlooked history of the large ethnic-Korean community in Japan, referred to as zainichi, whose perpetual status as outsiders obliges them, like Noa’s nephew Solomo in the novel, to renew their alien registration card every three years: a state of administrative limbo that mirrors their divided identities and condemns them to the role of the perpetual outsider.’ -The Guardian

The Literary Odyssey reading group is all about discovering new, translated fiction from writers from all over the world.  If you’re a fan of great literary fiction please come along, we always welcome new faces and opinions!