South Koran artists Lee Sung Kyung and Nam Joo Hyuk admitted their relationship in April, but they have broken up, according to YG Entertainment. Some industry representatives revealed they are too busy to maintain the relationship.
YG Entertainment has released an official statement: “We checked with Nam Joo Hyuk and Lee Sung Kyung, and it is true that the two recently broke up,” but the statement didn't reveal the exact reason for their breaking up.
Some industry representatives revealed that they naturally grew apart due to busy schedules and have decided to keep a supportive senior-junior relationship.
The two model-turned-actors had fallen in love with each other during the cooperation of the Korean drama “Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok Joo”.
NEW YORK (AP) — Min Jin Lee's first novel since her million-selling “Pachinko” is a long book that grew out of a basic question: What do Koreans care most about?
“We’re obsessed with education, and it became my obsession over why Koreans care so much,” says Lee, whose “American Hagwon,” scheduled for Sept. 29, will likely be one of the year's most anticipated books. Hagwons are for-profit tutoring centers — sometimes likened to “cram schools” — where Koreans of all ages receive instruction for everything from English to guitar to cooking. Any language school or organization that gives private lesson music classes” can be considered a Hagwon, Lee says.
The author, 57, calls herself an “accidental historian,” a novelist who uses broad narratives to unearth the past, make sense of the present and explore race, gender and class among other issues. “American Hagwon” is the third of a planned quartet about Korea and the Korean diaspora that began with “Free Food for Millionaires” in 2007 and continued a decade later with “Pachinko,” a National Book Award finalist that was adapted by Apple TV+ into a series and has been translated into dozens of languages.
In 2024, The New York Times ranked “Pachinko” at No. 15 among the best novels of the 21st century.
Cardinal, a Hachette Book Group imprint, is calling her new release a deep look into “what happens when the rules shift, the world order becomes suddenly unrecognizable and benchmarks of success are no longer a guarantee.” In “American Hagwon,” Lee sets her story everywhere from Korea to Australia to Southern California as she tracks the journey of a middle-class Korean family upended by the Asian financial crisis and hoping to regain its bearings.
“Almost 10 years after Pachinko, Min Jin Lee continues to give shape to history’s seismic shifts in her fiction, refracting generational change through indelible, masterfully etched characters you can’t help rooting for,” Cardinal Publisher and Senior Vice President Reagan Arthur said in a statement.
A native of Seoul whose family emigrated to New York City when she was 7, Lee attended the elite Bronx High School of Science, studied history at Yale University and law at Georgetown University. She knows well the importance of preparation, and laughs as she remembers that her father has nicknamed her “the turtle,” because she is slow — but “very steady.” Her books take a long time, in part, because she puts so much work into them. Her stories are based not just on research and reflection, but on extended travel and interviews.
“I want to hold up a mirror to society, and, as the kids say, do a ’vibe check,” she says.
FILE - Min Jin Lee attends the GQ Global Creativity Awards in New York on April 6, 2023. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File)
