Lee Min-jin delivers a message of sacrifice and love through her new novel ‘American Academy’

Korean author Lee Min-jin revealed that the message she wanted to convey through her new novel 'American Academy' was the sacrifice of giving up one's desires for the sake of a loved one.

Lee Min-jin said in an interview with the New York Times (NYT) on the 28th (local time), "What I want to convey to readers through my new work is 'love that makes one sacrifice.'"

He explained that while writing American Academy, he thought more about the issue of sacrifice than any of his previous works.

American Academy features characters who give up their pride and personal ambitions to protect their families.

A father chooses to fry shrimp and make fish sandwiches in the kitchen of a fish fry restaurant to support his family after the financial crisis.

Although those around him dissuade him from doing this, saying it is not suitable for a highly educated person, he starts working without complaint, wearing a hairnet and knee-high rubber boots.

Lee Min-jin emphasized, “Sacrifice is always evaluated negatively, but it is not always a bad thing.”

The NYT analyzed that American Academy contained clear criticism of education and materialism in Korea and the United States, but at its foundation was an exploration of the meaning of sacrifice, love, and family.

The theme of sacrifice appeared repeatedly in Lee Min-jin's previous works.

Some characters refuse to sacrifice for their families, while others are destroyed because of their sacrifice.

On the other hand, there are characters who discover the purpose of life through painful self-sacrifice.

It is assessed that economic survival and sacrifice for family, which are repeatedly discussed in Lee Min-jin's novels, are also related to his personal history.

Lee Min-jin immigrated from Korea to the United States with her parents and two sisters in 1976 when she was seven years old.

In Seoul, Lee Min-jin's father was a marketing executive, and her mother, a music college graduate, taught her children to play the piano.

However, the first place the family settled after immigrating to the United States was an old one-bedroom apartment infested with rats and cockroaches.

Parents who found jobs at a jewelry wholesale store had to go to work at 6 a.m. every day except Sunday.

The exploration of sacrifice is expected to continue in the next work.

Minjin Lee's next novel, known as 'The Marshall Plan,' will highlight the role of remittances sent by Koreans living abroad to their homeland during Korea's economic growth in the 1960s.

In particular, Lee Min-jin focuses on Korean women who moved to the United States after marrying American soldiers.

He said, "When I think of the glamor and beauty of Korea today, I don't think of the bar women who married American soldiers and lived in Texas in the past and were called prostitutes by people. But without them, I wouldn't have been able to invite my cousins ​​and brothers to the U.S. or send them money for education."

Lee Min-jin expressed regret over the fact that these women sacrificed a lot and yet were insulted by other Koreans.

NYT reported that Lee Min-jin began filling the floor-to-ceiling bookshelf in her office with related research materials in order to write her next work.