4th Estate signs Kim Eui-kyung’s 'groundbreaking' work of Korean feminist fiction
4th Estate has acquired Hello Baby by Kim Eui-kyung, described by the publisher as a "groundbreaking" work of Korean feminist fiction about a group of women undergoing IVF at a fertility clinic in Seoul.
Publishing director Kishani Widyaratna acquired UK and Commonwealth rights excluding Canada to Hello Baby in physical, digital and audio formats from Lisette Verhagen of Peters Fraser + Dunlop on behalf of Tae Eun Kim at Shinwon Agency and EunHaeng NaMu Publishing.
North American rights went to Maddie Woda at Hogarth and translation rights have sold in Germany, Italy, Holland, Japan and Turkey. Hello Baby is Eui-kyung’s debut in English-language translation. The novel will be translated by International Booker Prize-shortlisted translator Sora Kim-Russell and published in July 2026.
Its blurb reads: "In a group chat called ‘Hello Baby’, six women share the anxieties and absurdities of undergoing IVF. They first met at Baby Angel Hospital, an elite fertility clinic in Seoul. Outside the chat, each woman is different – a journalist, a police officer, a vet, a lawyer and two housewives. They know it is unlikely they will all get their happy ending, but inside the chat, anything seems possible. So, when 46-year-old Jeong-hyo suddenly announces she has stopped treatment and goes silent, it rocks them all.
"One year later, on Lunar New Year, Jeong-hyo sends a message announcing the birth of her daughter. As the stunned women count down to their visit to meet her and the new baby, they each reckon with their own journeys and wonder how this miracle has come to pass."
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Widyaratna said: "Hello Baby cast a spell over the whole team. This moving, wry and disarmingly honest novel offers a daring exploration of fertility, IVF, womanhood and the desire to be a mother in South Korea and across the world. Kim Eui-kyung writes with great empathy, originality and insight, beautifully rendered in Sora Kim-Russell’s translation."
Eui-kyung is a novelist and essayist. Her debut novel Youth Bankruptcy won the Korea Economic Daily Youth Literary Contest, and her second novel Call Center was awarded the sixth Soorim Literary Prize. She also published the story collection Showroom, set against the backdrop of IKEA, and the essay collection The Season Called Life.
She said: "I’m very pleased that Hello Baby is being published by 4th Estate, a UK publisher I deeply respect. As this is the first time my work is being translated into English, it feels especially meaningful. I look forward to the day when English-language readers can discover this book."
