Novelist Min Jin Lee’s latest work, *American Hagwon*, offers a generational examination of education and immigration through the lens of a Korean family navigating displacement and adaptation across continents. The book, released on September 29, traces the Koh family as they move from a comfortable life in Seoul to Sydney and eventually Southern California, confronting shifting ideas about success, identity, and the purpose of education along the way.

Lee, 57, who grew up in a Korean immigrant family in Queens, New York, draws heavily from her own experiences and extensive research to inform the novel. The narrative centers on hagwons—private tutoring centers integral to Korean education—and explores how they become a symbol of opportunity and social mobility, especially for immigrant families seeking economic stability in the United States.

The Koh children, originally beneficiaries of Seoul’s hagwon culture, eventually take on teaching roles at a similar institution in suburban Southern California, highlighting how education functions both as a tool for advancement and as a conduit of cultural values. The novel situates its story around major economic crises, starting with the 1997 Asian financial crisis and touching on concerns leading up to the Great Recession, underscoring the precarious realities that drive parents and students into these intensive educational systems.

Lee’s interest in the moral dimensions of education is shaped by her personal background—she is the granddaughter of a minister and was raised with a biblical framework that emphasizes ethical responsibility. Throughout *American Hagwon*, she interrogates the question: what should education ultimately serve? Her characters wrestle with whether education is merely a means to economic success or a vehicle for cultivating ethical citizens who contribute positively to society.

Despite the critiques embedded in the novel, Lee stops short of condemning hagwons themselves, considering them vital pathways to social mobility. Instead, she critiques the societal pressures and anxieties—fueled by neoliberal capitalism and economic uncertainty—that inflate the importance placed on academic achievement.

Before pursuing writing full-time, Lee worked as a corporate lawyer. After being diagnosed with chronic hepatitis B, she shifted her focus to literature, channeling an urgency to create work that would endure. Her previous novels, *Free Food For Millionaires* and *Pachinko*, similarly explore the Korean diaspora across generations, with *Pachinko* gaining widespread acclaim and being adapted into a television series.

For *American Hagwon*, Lee undertook extensive research, conducting hundreds of interviews and gathering voluminous notes to ensure accuracy and depth. She stresses the importance of grounding the novel’s imaginative elements in fact, a practice that, she says, helps her maintain confidence in her storytelling.

In recent years, Lee has also taken on academic roles, including a fellowship at Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study and a writer-in-residence appointment at Amherst College, where she continues to engage with questions surrounding culture, identity, and education.

Through *American Hagwon*, Lee presents a nuanced discourse on education’s role in shaping not only individual futures but collective ethical life, emphasizing that true education should foster critical thinking, empathy, and responsibility toward others. The novel’s dialogues reflect Lee’s vision of education as a transformative process that extends beyond personal advancement to social citizenship.