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No. 9 is in trouble. His son’s college tuition is coming due, his wife needs surgery after taking double shifts at a grocery store, the apartment building they bought as a nest egg is falling apart, and the company he helped build is trying to force him into early retirement. When he refuses, the mid-level IT man is demoted to sales and given increasingly impossible tasks. As his salary dwindles and the humiliations mount, No. 9 must decide where his loyalties lie. If he fights back, how far will the company go to stop him?
With her urgent and timely novel, award-winning Korean author Kim Hye-jin questions how long we can endure a broken system. In a rigged game, is there an alternative to playing out your hand?
“Author Kim Hye-jin and translator Jamie Chang bring an extraordinary work of literature in Employee No. 9. A portrait of labor, identity, and desperation in modern corporate life, the novel explores a world shaped by inequality and the erosion of workers’ rights. Employee No. 9 captures a growing global unease surrounding labor and survival while remaining deeply rooted in the realities of contemporary Korean society.”
— E. J. Koh, author of The Liberators and The Magical Language of Others
“A searing critique of the workplace culture in an ultra-modern society like South Korea, where the race for higher profits trumps human dignity. Its powerful narrative reverberates long after the last page.”
— Wondra Chang, author of Sonju, nominated for the National Book Award