*INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER* From the New York Times Notable author of T he Old Woman with the
Knife comes a bracingly original story of family marriage and 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
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.
