Elisa Shua Dusapin Knihy

Poetic, delicate, and mysterious, "The Pachinko Parlour" follows Claire, a young Swiss woman spending the summer in Tokyo with her grandparents. She hopes to embark on one last significant journey with them to Korea, their homeland, which they have not visited since the war. Her grandfather runs a pachinko parlor, a gaming hall filled with pinball machines that he holds dear. As her grandparents continually postpone the trip, Claire takes care of Mieko, a Japanese girl living alone with her mother. This marks the beginning of an extraordinary friendship. Elisa Shua Dusapin masterfully explores themes of generational connections and the longing for home.

"It's winter in Sokcho, a tourist town on the border between South and North Korea. The cold slows everything down. Bodies are red and raw, the fish turn venomous, beyond the beach guns point out from the North's watchtowers. A young French Korean woman works as a receptionist in a tired guesthouse. One evening, an unexpected guest arrives: a French cartoonist determined to find inspiration in this desolate landscape. The two form an uneasy relationship. When she agrees to accompany him on trips to discover an 'authentic' Korea, they visit snowy mountaintops and dramatic waterfalls, and cross into North Korea. But he takes no interest in the Sokcho she knows - the gaudy neon lights, the scars of war, the fish market where her mother works. As she's pulled into his vision and taken in by his drawings, she strikes upon a way to finally be seen."--Publisher description