This novel was a finalist for the National Book Award. It is the saga of four generations of Koreans, most of whom never lived in Korea. Beginning during the occupation/colonization of Korea by Japan the story runs through World War II to the 1970s. The family faces illness, imprisonment, the horrors of war, poverty, and starvation while holding onto the importance of family, and their hard work ethic. Sunja, the daughter of a crippled fisherman and a boardinghouse owner, gets pregnant by a charming businessman who turns out to have a wife and children in Japan. A tubercular missionary at the boarding house marries her and takes her to Japan where he has a job in a church. Because Koreans are looked down upon by the Japanese they live in the Korean ghetto with his brother and sister-in-law. Life gets harder and harder but Sunja's former lover steps in to help, secretly at first. The story continues as her children grow, become adults, and have their own challenges to face living as a minority in a country that does not want them there. There aren't that many books in English that portray the struggle of Koreans in Japanese society and this one covers a many of the challenges Koreans faced there. And, like the game of Pachinko, success / winning is controlled in part by the machine settings but partly by chance.
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