For Min Jin Lee, the author of Pachinko, writing a novel is a nearly god-like act of creation, a way to preside over a small universe that authors fashion in the image of their beliefs. In a conversation for this series, she explained why her commitment to third-person “omniscient” narration is not just an aesthetic choice, but also an ethical one: That mode’s flexibility lets her build a functioning, self-contained world, one that’s governed by an overarching moral physics.
But if omniscient narration allows Lee to play god, the question is what kind of god to be. For inspiration, she looks to the biblical story of Joseph, a tale that’s helped to shape the way she thinks about good and evil. She explained how the story instilled her with a radical belief that supercharges her fiction: If suffering and injustice can be recast as opportunities for empathy and forgiveness, even life’s worst events can feel like divine fate.