From the New York Times Notable author of The Old Woman with the Knife, comes a bracingly original story of family, marriage, the cultural expectations of motherhood, about four women whose lives intersect in dramatic and unexpected ways at a government-run apartment complex outside Seoul
 
When Yojin moves with her husband and daughter into the Dream Future Pilot Communal Apartments, she’s ready for a fresh start. Located on the outskirts of Seoul, the experimental community is a government initiative designed to boost the national birth rate. Like her neighbors, Yojin has agreed to have at least two more children over the next ten years.
 
Yet, from the day she arrives, Yojin feels uneasy about the community spirit thrust upon her. Her concerns grow as communal child care begins and the other parents begin to show their true colors. Apartment Women traces the lives of four women in the apartments, all with different aspirations and beliefs. Will they find a way to live peacefully? Or are the cultural expectations around parenthood stacked against them from the start?
 
A trenchant social novel from an award-winning author, Apartment Women incisively illuminates the unspoken imbalance of women’s parenting labor, challenging the age-old assumption that “it takes a village” to raise a child.
 
Contributor Bio(s)
 
Gu Byeong-mo is an award-winning author. Born in Seoul, South Korea, she now resides in Jinju, South Korea with her family. The Old Woman with the Knife, her first book to be translated into English, was a New York Times Notable Book and an NPR Best Book of the Year.
 
Chi-Young Kim is an award-winning literary translator and editor who has translated works by You-jeong Jeong, Sun-mi Hwang, Young-ha Kim, Kyung Ran Jo, J.M. Lee, and Kyung-sook Shin, among others.