A true artist and consummate intellectual, Lee excavates the past while interrogating contemporary life with rigor and compassion.
2026 Ellmann Lectures: Can Wisdom be Taught?
On March 1-3, 2026, acclaimed novelist Min Jin Lee (Free Food for Millionaires, Pachinko) headlined the Richard Ellmann Lectures in Modern Literature, exploring the theme “Can Wisdom Be Taught?” Lee’s lectures examined the subject of wisdom in an unpredictable world and the role of storytelling in shaping knowledge, discernment, and good judgment.
The 2026 Ellmann Lectures commenced on March 1st with the original lecture "The Education of a Writer" delivered by Min Jin Lee. In this lecture, Lee reflected on her own unlikely path to becoming a novelist and how her writing has been shaped by the education she received, both inside and outside the walls of the university.
On March 2nd, the lectures continued with "Writing American." In this lecture, Min Jin Lee explored what it means to be an American writer in the current moment, reflecting on both her own identity and experiences and how ideas about American literature have been shaped and reshaped over time.
On March 3rd, the Ellmann Lectures concluded with "Writers and the World"— a Creativity Conversation in which Min Jin lee was joined by acclaimed novelist Tayari Jones (An American Marriage, Kin) for a conversation about the creative process and the ways that culture, geography, and politics inflect their work.
If you missed the Creativity Conversation with Min Jin Lee and Tayari Jones or would like to revisit the conversation, please see below for a recording of the event:
About the Speaker
Lee serves as the New York State Author Laureate from September 2025 through 2027. She is the 2024 recipient of The Fitzgerald Prize for Literary Excellence. Lee has received the Manhae Grand Prize for Literature, the Bucheon Diaspora Literary Award, and the Samsung Happiness for Tomorrow Award for Creativity from South Korea. Her fiction has been translated into over 35 languages. She is the recipient of fellowships in Fiction from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Harvard Radcliffe Institute, and the New York Foundation for the Arts. Lee is an inductee of the New York Foundation for the Arts Hall of Fame and the New York State Writers Hall of Fame.
Lee served as the Editor of Best American Short Stories 2023. Her essays and criticism have appeared in numerous publications, including The New York Times, The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, Wall Street Journal, Travel & Leisure, Conde Nast Traveler, Vogue, and The Times of London. She is a Writer-in-Residence at Amherst College. She is at work on the novel, Marshall Plan, the fourth of the Diaspora Quartet, and writing Name Recognition, a memoir. Lee lives in Harlem with her family.