Min Jin Lee returns with American Hagwon, a family saga across three countries

Min Jin Lee has followed the global success of Pachinko with a third novel about a Korean family scattered by money, betrayal and schooling.

American Hagwon was published on September 29, 2026, almost a decade after Pachinko appeared in 2017. The new book centres on John and Helen Koh and their three children, Bo, DH and Mido, and spans the years 1992 to 2007. It moves from Seoul to Sydney to Orange County and back, after the family is upended first by a betrayal by John's oldest friend and then by Asia's IMF Crisis.

That crisis is also known as the 1997 Asian financial crisis, and the novel follows one family from Seoul to Sydney to California in the years leading up to and after it, according to The Guardian. Lee has said she wrote the book to understand why education is so important to Koreans everywhere. It is the third book in a planned four-novel series about the Korean diaspora and was nearly 10 years in the making, according to NPR.

The deal behind it was competitive. American Hagwon was bought in a 12-way publishing auction, meaning 12 publishers bid for the rights. It is listed as available for pre-order, meaning readers can buy copies before or just after publication date through bookshops.

The stakes were high for Lee's publisher. Her second novel, Pachinko, has sold more than 5 million copies globally. It was voted one of the New York Times 100 best books of the century and was adapted for Apple TV in 2022. Her first novel, Free Food for Millionaires, was published in 2007.

Lee, 57, spoke from her home in Harlem, New York, in an interview published on October 3, 2026. She said she was diagnosed as a teenager as a hepatitis B carrier and told by doctors she was highly likely to develop liver cancer in her 20s or 30s. She quit her job as a corporate lawyer in 1995 when she was in her mid-20s.

What makes this stand out is the long chain behind it. One health scare led to a career change. Two novels led to a 12-publisher contest for the third. Now a fourth is in view.

Lee's next book, her European novel, is titled Marshall Plan. Its starting point is the 1963 bilateral agreement when thousands of Koreans were sent to West Germany to work as miners or nurses. Lee is New York State Author Laureate for 2025-2027. Han Kang became the first Korean Nobel Prize for literature laureate in 2024.