Hello Baby

The bonds between six women undergoing IVF are tested when one announces an unexpected birth in this absorbing, candid novel about what women endure to become mothers

Outside the chat, they had different jobs, personalities, financial backgrounds, but inside, they were all mothers-to-be anxiously awaiting their babies.

At a fertility clinic in Seoul, six women in their thirties and forties become friends. To comfort one another while undergoing IVF, they create the group chat ＂Hello Baby.＂ Over the course of two years, they share personal stories on their way to motherhood, until one, forty-six-year-old Jung-hyo, suddenly announces she has stopped treatment and disappears from the friend group. But after a year of silence, on Lunar New Year, she drops a text in the chat with the news that she recently gave birth to a baby girl. She invites the group over to celebrate her daughter’s birth. With a mix of envy and admiration, the women gather, but their doubts and suspicions threaten a friendship already stressed by uncertainty.

Switching between the six characters--a journalist, a police officer, a vet, a lawyer, and two housewives--this thought-provoking novel explores the social pressure and emotional strain on women struggling to conceive. Written with insight, humor, and great empathy, Hello Baby is a moving portrait of what it means to be a woman today and the lengths some will go to seek motherhood.

Kim 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 won the Soorim Literary Award. She also published a short story collection Showroom, set against the backdrop of IKEA and DAISO, and an essay collection The Season Called Life. Hello Baby is her third novel.

Sora Kim-Russell is a literary translator based in Seoul. Her works include the Booker International Prize-nominated Mater 2-10 (co-translated with Youngjae Josephine Bae) and At Dusk by Hwang Sok-yong. Her translation of Pyun Hye-young’s The Hole won the Shirley Jackson Award for best novel, and her translations of Pyun’s short fiction have appeared in The New Yorker and Harper’s Magazine.