June 26, 2023

Women writing family sagas

27 minutes

Kim Chakanetsa meets two writers who, in their work, explore the themes of love, identity, belonging and inter-generational trauma.

Min Jin Lee is a South Korean American author who wrote two novels, Free food for Millionaires and Pachinko, a multi-generational saga following the story of a Korean family in Japan. Pachinko was a New York Times bestseller and was nominated for the National Book Award for Fiction, and it’s recently been turned into a TV series. Min is currently working on her third novel, American Hagwon.

Elif Shafak is a Turkish British writer. She has written 19 books, most of them novels, which have been translated into 55 languages. She is a Booker prize finalist, and her most recent novel - The Island of Missing Trees - tells the forbidden love story between a Greek Cypriot man and a Turkish Cypriot woman.

Produced by Alice Gioia

(Image: (L) Elif Shafak, credit BBC. (R) Min Jin Lee, credit Getty Images)

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