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Pachinko
- Narrated by: Allison Hiroto
- Length: 18 hrs and 14 mins
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Publisher's Summary
Yeongdo, Korea - 1911. In a small fishing village on the banks of the East Sea, a club-footed, cleft-lipped man marries a 15-year-old girl. The couple have one child: their beloved daughter, Sunja.
When Sunja falls pregnant by a married yakuza, the family face ruin. But then, Isak, a Christian minister, offers her a chance of salvation: a new life in Japan as his wife. Following a man she barely knows to a hostile country in which she has no friends and no home, and whose language she cannot speak, Sunja's salvation is just the beginning of her story.
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What listeners say about Pachinko
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- Denyse
- 21-04-2022
Surprised to Both Enjoy and Learn from This
I picked Pachinko from a list recently and was not sure how I would like it. The narrator helped me greatly with her reading as she kept the characters' names and qualities interesting. I was a bit sad when it finished but know I have a greater appreciation of cross cultural identity, racial prejudice and more thanks to this book.
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- Cath
- 28-05-2022
A beautiful story of generations
The vast, heartbreaking and loving story of a girl right through to her old age…tales told of incredible resilience, hard work, respect and love for family and honouring traditions.
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- Natalie
- 14-06-2022
Beautiful
A beautiful and engaging story of a family overcoming hardships. Heartbreaking and tragic in parts and a reflection on what it is to live.
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- Anonymous User
- 15-02-2023
Profound existential read
Eye opening generational story that makes life and relationships feel brief. I had a sense of profound sadness when it ended, and the realisation that most stories don’t get their happy ending, but they get an ending. Suffering is inevitable and the key to moving through life is acceptance, trying to do the right thing and continuously putting one foot in front of the other. I would have liked to have known where many of these stories ended up, but the book mimics life, you don’t always know where people and their stories ended up. Life moves on and there will be moments of beauty amongst the uncertainty and suffering .
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- Steven Griffith
- 09-04-2023
Great story
Great story , I have never read or thought about Korean /Japanese relationships … slow at the start ::BUT a FANTASTIC read about relationships , suffering and entwined lives
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- Ben
- 08-01-2020
great multi generational story or koreans in japan
as a westerner I've had a small idea about the layered hostility between the Japanese and Korean which I kind of assumed went both ways. its hard to grapple that the beloved version of japan i have can be so xenophobic. this is an illuminating novel on how the situation came to be for the semi stateless generation of koreans born into a country which only tolerates their existence, whose parents came from a homeland which is now fractured in two. hard to get into initially but pays dividends by the end.
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- Anonymous User
- 11-05-2020
Wonderful Saga
Like all the best stories, Pachinko came full circle from a girl's simple life, through a complex family saga and back to a sort of resolution in her old age. The characters are memorable and the cultural tensions thought provoking. Love is love, wherever it is found.
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- ANGELICA
- 11-02-2021
Wonderful book
This was such a wonderful story. Such an interesting plot. Beautiful characters and perfectly described.
Cannot recommend highly enough.
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- candie t.
- 30-10-2019
A wonderful book
A truly wonderful text and so well read. It teases us into thought about the consequences of our decisions and furthermore, the need to be flexible in our thoughts and decisions.
Man’s inhumanity to man, specifically the treatment of Koreans by the Japanese underpins this fine text.
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- Luci
- 12-05-2023
Insightful cultural and historical family saga
I have never had much understanding about Korean world views, or family inter generational struggles. So I enjoyed the story and characters, couldn’t stop listening and would like a sequel.
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