(This book was selected as one of The New York Times Book Review’s 10 Best Books of 2017. Pachinko, the slot-machine-like game ubiquitous throughout Japan, unifies the central concerns of identity, homeland and belonging. For the ethnic Korean population in Japan, discriminated against and shut out of traditional occupations, pachinko parlors are the primary mode of finding work and accumulating wealth. From a young age, Sunja’s oldest son sees being Korean as “a dark, heavy rock”; his greatest, secret desire is to be Japanese. He believes there are still good Japanese people and sees himself as Japanese, too, “even if the Japanese didn’t think so.”

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