{"product_id":"american-hagwon","title":"American Hagwon","description":"\n\u003ctable align=\"center\" border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"2\" cellspacing=\"0\" width=\"100%\"\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd class=\"productDetailSmallElements\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eBiographical Note\u003c\/strong\u003e:\u003cbr\u003e\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMin Jin Lee is the author of the novels \n\u003ci\u003eFree Food for Millionaires\u003c\/i\u003e and \n\u003ci\u003ePachinko\u003c\/i\u003e, a finalist for the National Book Award, runner-up for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and a New York Times \"100 Best Books of the Century.\" She serves as the New York State Author Laureate from 2025 through 2027. She is the 2024 recipient of The Fitzgerald Prize for Literary Excellence. Lee has received the Manhae Grand Prize for Literature, the Bucheon Diaspora Literary Award, and the Samsung Happiness for Tomorrow Award for Creativity from South Korea. She is the recipient of fellowships in Fiction from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Harvard Radcliffe Institute, and the New York Foundation for the Arts. Lee is an inductee of the New York Foundation for the Arts Hall of Fame and the New York State Writers Hall of Fame. She lives in Harlem with her family.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eReview Quotes\u003c\/strong\u003e:\u003cbr\u003e\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\" \n\u003ci\u003eAmerican Hagwon\u003c\/i\u003e is a compelling, moving epic of family life across continents and generations. It asks how we learn--and how we learn who we are or who we can be--by drawing us close to heart-warming, heart-breaking characters who will stay with us long after the last page is turned.\"-- \n\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eErica Wagner, author of Gravity and Wash\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eReview Quotes\u003c\/strong\u003e:\u003cbr\u003e\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Magnificent--a deep education from a master storyteller. Surfacing stirring questions about diaspora and striving and the burdens we place on the shoulders of parents and children alike, \n\u003ci\u003eAmerican Hagwon\u003c\/i\u003e is among the very best novels of immigration. A work of grace and beauty that unspools one thread at a time, much like life itself.\"-- \n\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eMatthew Desmond, author of Poverty, by America and Evicted, winner of the Pulitzer Prize\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eReview Quotes\u003c\/strong\u003e:\u003cbr\u003e\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"There are meticulous, beautifully crafted layers to Min Jin Lee's latest novel, \n\u003ci\u003eAmerican Hagwon\u003c\/i\u003e. It is, on the surface, an engrossing story about a Korean family and their resilience as forces beyond the control alter the trajectory of their lives. But it is, at its core, a story about striving, the complexities of the hagwon system, and a cultural pressure to succeed at any cost. As Lee's story unfolds, and we get to know a sprawling cast of characters across three continents, the impressive scope and scale of this new epic reveals itself in astonishing ways. She brings grand ambition, fierce heart, and the tenderest hope to a novel I didn't want to end.\"-- \n\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eRoxane Gay, author of Bad Feminist\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eReview Quotes\u003c\/strong\u003e:\u003cbr\u003e\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"A novel of extraordinary ambition. Min Jin Lee has constructed a world so rich and intricate that you forget you're reading--you're simply living alongside the Kohs as they navigate betrayal, displacement, and the shifting promises of a better future. A stunning achievement.\"-- \n\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eTara Westover, author of Educated\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eReview Quotes\u003c\/strong\u003e:\u003cbr\u003e\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Min Jin Lee has written another masterpiece. \n\u003ci\u003eAmerican Hagwon\u003c\/i\u003e is, at once, an intimate story that spans three continents of the Koh family's love, loss, and disappointments. It is also a story of how the ongoing demand for success can distort how we live and love. In this sense, the novel relentlessly criticizes a world defined by material gain, consumption, and status. The Koh family finds itself caught up in the whirlwind of it all. Despite the devastation wrought by the burden of achievement, faith and a gentle and unshakable love remain. Something we all need to remember and feel in these dark days.\"-- \n\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eEddie S. Glaude Jr., author of America, U.S.A.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eReview Quotes\u003c\/strong\u003e:\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003ci\u003e\"American Hagwon\u003c\/i\u003e is a stunning novel, following three generations of families of the Korean diaspora across four continents. Lee's explorations of education, class and gender are finely wrought as each character must find his or her sense of purpose--and anchor that purpose in love as well as labor--notwithstanding the cruelties of economic crises and the disorientations of displacement. Bound together by faith, tradition, and origin, the moral universe of the novel's characters is brilliant with Lee's ever present ethical clarity and deep sensitivity. Yearning and forbearance, grace and devastation, course through these pages, in a story that is both epic and intimate. Yet again, Lee has written a novel that both speaks to the world and illuminates Korean history and culture. Indeed, she makes clear that it is a history we all would do well to learn and heed.\"-- \n\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eImani Perry, author of Black In Blues and South to America, winner of the National Book Award\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eReview Quotes\u003c\/strong\u003e:\u003cbr\u003e\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"What can I say? \n\u003ci\u003eAmerican Hagwon\u003c\/i\u003e is all of the things. A masterful social novel sweeping in scope and at the same time nuanced and devastating in its precision. An incisive examination of what we value as individuals, as parents, as a society. A book that crosses oceans and cultures and generations to tell an intricate and compulsively entertaining tale of class, ambition, friendship, family, love, sex and, of course, education. Min Jin Lee is a writer in full command of her craft and what she has crafted is a timeless and universal story of people dreaming and striving for a better life, a story of greed and betrayal, grief and heartbreak but also sacrifice and kindness and grace. These characters live and breathe and will stay with me. A vital and important work.\"-- \n\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eCharles Yu, author of Interior Chinatown, winner of the National Book Award\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eReview Quotes\u003c\/strong\u003e:\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eAmerican Hagwon\u003c\/i\u003e is astonishing in its ability to do so many things at once. It is an enthralling family saga rich with intrigue, secrets, and betrayal. It is a literary triumph written in the most exquisite prose. It is a profound and moving meditation on the question of what it means to live a meaningful life. This book, this story, and these characters will remain with me forever. \u003ci\u003eAmerican Hagwon \u003c\/i\u003econfirms what has long been true: Min Jin Lee is one of the best writers of our time.\"\u003c\/p\u003e-- \n\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eClint Smith, author of Above Ground and How the Word Is Passed\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eReview Quotes\u003c\/strong\u003e:\u003cbr\u003e\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"I love \n\u003ci\u003eAmerican Hagwon\u003c\/i\u003e so much. Min Jin Lee is phenomenally the real thing. I was completely not ready for the brilliance of this book and the way she captured the essence of so many of our lived experiences through the members of the Koh family. I read huge swaths of this book with my heart in my throat and found myself cheering. This book is brilliant.\"-- \n\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eJacqueline Woodson, author of Red at the Bone and Brown Girl Dreaming, winner of the National Book Award\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eReview Quotes\u003c\/strong\u003e:\u003cbr\u003e\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\" \n\u003ci\u003eAmerican Hagwon\u003c\/i\u003e is an immersive, engrossing novel. As the Koh family, brilliantly imagined by Min Jin Lee, moves between South Korea, Australia and California, they each have a fierce and fascinating individuality. This is panorama told in brilliant detail.\"-- \n\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eColm Toibin, author of The Master and Brooklyn\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eReview Quotes\u003c\/strong\u003e:\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Readers of \u003ci\u003eAmerican Hagwon\u003c\/i\u003e will feel as though they know the vibrant and irrepressible Kohs, whose interwoven journeys invite us to reconsider and reflect on the meaning of home, labor, achievement, and belonging across generations and continents. Their challenges are great and their successes hard-earned, yet it is their deep love and ultimate acceptance of one another that makes Lee's characters unforgettable. Their story beautifully captures what it means to find both meaning and refuge in community; to be humbled at times, but never defeated; to make choices that reflect who we truly are; to find good in the unexpected. It shows us that to believe in the next generation is to possess an unquenchable hope for the future. This book is a gift for students of all ages, for those who care for and hope alongside them, and for all of us who are blessed to read and learn from Min Jin Lee.\"\u003c\/p\u003e-- \n\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eNicole Chung, author of A Living Remedy and All You Can Ever Know\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eReview Quotes\u003c\/strong\u003e:\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Min Jin Lee's intimate epic of family, sacrifice, and fortune creates a world that will become as real to you as your own. It's about education and the rice-cooker pressure families face when opportunities run scarce. It's about capitalism, globalization, and human disposability. It's about family and the strange forms love takes when the abyss of insecurity nears. It's about immigrant pain and the truth beneath facile narratives of uplift. In our age of affordability crises, immigration rages, downward mobility, and anxiety about our children's inheritance, there couldn't be a more relevant novel--nor one that so movingly captures what it feels like to be a person today and to struggle.\"\u003c\/p\u003e-- \n\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eAnand Giridharadas, author of Man in the Mirror and Winners Take All\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eReview Quotes\u003c\/strong\u003e:\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Readers of Min Jin Lee's \u003ci\u003ePachinko\u003c\/i\u003e won't be disappointed by the compulsively readable \u003ci\u003eAmerican Hagwon\u003c\/i\u003e. \u003ci\u003eAmerican Hagwon\u003c\/i\u003e follows the lives of the Koh family from Korea, Australia, and America, with the breadth and urgency of a saga and the intimacy of a short story. Lee explores essential questions such as the role of education, the nature of love, and the conditions of immigrant life, but to appreciate American Hagwon by its themes alone is to limit what it really is. It is, ultimately, a fully realized vision of compassion, passion, and wisdom.\"\u003c\/p\u003e-- \n\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eKrys Lee, author of Drifting House and How I Became a North Korean\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eReview Quotes\u003c\/strong\u003e:\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"An absolutely propulsive read. If your faith in either humanity or storytelling has dimmed, \u003ci\u003eAmerican Hagwon\u003c\/i\u003e will make it blaze again.\"\u003c\/p\u003e-- \n\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eKamila Shamsie, author of Best of Friends and Home Fire\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eReview Quotes\u003c\/strong\u003e:\u003cbr\u003e\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"With her gift for wonderfully empathetic storytelling, this is a profoundly generous and humane novel about duty, family, and the dream of a better life. In this multi-layered portrait of immigrants and expatriates, Min Jin Lee conveys so much human warmth while capturing the stifling pressures of the Korean educational system. I was fully absorbed by the fates of the Koh family and, as the novel worked its cumulative magic, deeply moved by this masterful tale of sacrifice, familial devotion, and, ultimately, acceptance.\"-- \n\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eDouglas Stuart, author of John of John and Shuggie Bain, winner of the Booker Prize\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eReview Quotes\u003c\/strong\u003e:\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Through masterfully controlled storytelling, Lee patiently explores how her large group of characters' fortunes are shaped by forces from without and within: the powerful lure of sex, the sucking vacuum of greed, the insidiousness of racism, the obligations between parents and children. What makes a good life? The author's wisdom is a gift to her readers.\"\u003c\/p\u003e-- \n\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eKirkus Reviews (starred)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublisher Marketing\u003c\/strong\u003e:\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eThe National Book Award finalist and New York Times bestselling author ofPachinko returns with a breathtaking contemporary epic: a masterpiece by turns sweeping and intimate, that reckons with ambition and moderation, lust and loyalty, personal dreams and familial duty.\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eMin Jin Lee brings grand ambition, fierce heart, and the tenderest hope to a novel I didn't want to end.\" --Roxane Gay, bestselling author of \u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eBad Feminist\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\n\u003cb\u003e and \u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eHunger\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn schools and churches, hotel rooms and nail salons, law firms and fried-fish shops; in cramped, dingy apartments and luxury, gated communities, the men, women, and children in \n\u003ci\u003eAmerican Hagwon\u003c\/i\u003e struggle to find satisfaction and meaning in a world that seems to grow less forgiving with each passing year. Once comfortably middle class in Korea, John and Helen Koh and their three children--Bo, DH, and Mido--find their lives upended, first by a shocking betrayal by John's oldest friend, then by the 1997 Asian financial crisis. \n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eDesperately striving to regain their footing, they leave Seoul for Sydney and eventually settle in Southern California--where new vistas of opportunity open up for the children as their parents, strangers in a strange land, must adjust to a new life in which their experience and education mean little, and they set their sights on whatever it takes to provide for their children's futures. The Kohs, their friends, relatives, and even their foes move in and out of each other's lives as they navigate new courses across the years, always nursing the almost all-consuming faith that education will lead the next generation to success and security. \n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn \n\u003ci\u003eAmerican Hagwon\u003c\/i\u003e, Min Jin Lee has crafted an unforgettable, panoramic novel where the smallest of gestures can have enormous repercussions, where the bonds of family and of memory twist and fray but rarely break, and where willful self-sacrifice--for the benefit of loved ones and even strangers--is a kind of prayer. \n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eAn immersive, engrossing novel ... this is panorama told in brilliant detail.\"\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003cb\u003e--Colm Tóibín, bestselling author of\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eLong Island\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eand\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eBrooklyn\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eReview Citations:\u003c\/strong\u003e\n\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"italic\"\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/span\u003e 07\/01\/2026 (EAN 9781538752036, Hardcover) - *Starred Review\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003c\/table\u003e\n","brand":"Cardinal","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51496271773974,"sku":"9781538752036","price":43.2,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0857\/9910\/8886\/files\/9781538752036.jpg?v=1783058767","url":"https:\/\/lusper.myshopify.com\/products\/american-hagwon","provider":"Lusperbooks","version":"1.0","type":"link"}