Pachinko (National Book Award Finalist)

was as if the young woman were turning down her lights to minimize any possibility of attraction or notice. She dressed soberly in white blouses and inexpensive

But here’s the truth: There’s no such thing as a benevolent leader. I protect you because you work for me. If you act like a fool and go against my interests, then I can’t protect you.

that to live without forgiveness was a kind of death with breathing and movement.

Conventional physical beauty takes time, money, and effort, and it is expensive for all women, but it is cruelly so for women without resources.

I propose the following definition of the nation: it is an imagined political community—and imagined as both inherently limited

was possible that he was in love with the way she wrote the number two—