VOL.93/2026.04

Export Case

 

TWO WOMEN LIVING TOGETHER by Hwang Sunwoo and Kim Hana

 

 

2026.04

 

 

I am the proud American editor of TWO WOMEN LIVING TOGETHER, thebestselling Korean memoir by Hwang Sunwoo and Kim Hana—two single women in their late thirties, who’ve chosen to buy a home and live togetheras non-romantic life partners. In the United States, the term "roommates" tends to have a very particular connotation, often conjuring young twenty-something-year-olds who are forced to live in close quarters out of thrift, and who may or not become close friends, though they rarely reach the familial intimacy of domestic partners. Typicallythe arrangement is seen as a temporary one, until each roommate reaches the financial freedom to live alone, or to start a household with their romantic partners.

 

But Hwang Sunwoo and Kim Hana have fundamentally unsettled this Western convention, as two friends who have chosen to live together, not as lovers, not as mere roommates, but as longterm domestic partners. They take care of each other when they are sick, co-parent their four cats, help look after their elderly parents, and plan their retirements together. In these funny, heartwarming, and thought-provoking essays, Hwang and Kim describe what it’s like to live as their own kind of family in a society built for romantic couples. The main message being: it’s okay for women to be single, unmarried, and childfree, and there are ways to do this without giving up on family. And the message is a warm, life-affirming invitation, rather than a strict polemic, which has helped to reach a mainstream audience. The New York Times was attuned to the book’s leftist principles wrapped up in an approachable, irresistible bow: "The best way I can describe the content of the book is that it is JD Vance's actual living nightmare... lashings of cutesiness — like referring to themselves as "pawrents" (Gene Png’s translation) — almost disguise the radicalism of the book’s project. Almost.“

 

Hwang and Kim’s decision was derived from practical concerns resonant with American society–such as unaffordable housing and the patriarchy–but also to mitigate the eventual loneliness of growing old alone, as the body becomes less able and dependency increases. This is a radical call for interdependence that marks a significant paradigm shift from the American brand of feminism, which typically preaches female empowerment through rugged individualism. I believe this pathbreaking concept, as well as the charming, winsomevoices of Hwang and Kim, is what has helped to win over an English-speaking readership.

 

This heart-warming and inspiring portrait of modern adulthood arrives just as questions about the primacy of nuclear families and monogamous relationships are becoming more mainstream in the United States. But rather than focusing on open marriages or a more straightforwardly queer notion of chosen family, TWO WOMEN LIVING TOGETHER is a story about female friendship, and the ways to nurture that sacred bond as we age. Fittingly, Publishers Weekly called the book “a winning testament to the power of friendship.“

 

TWO WOMEN LIVING TOGETHER is as entertaining as it is visionary, and just ahead of its time. As American millennials age, increasingly seeking out nontraditional ways of being and seeing to their needs, they will surely turn to Hwang and Kim’s story as a blueprint for how to live a safe and meaningful life.

 

 

 

 

 

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Written by Deborah Ghim (Senior Editor at Ecco, An Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers)

Across genres, Deborah is acquiring thought-provoking, craft-driven literature with a distinct style, singular POV, and strong evocation of place or (sub)culture—stories told with both head and heart, and which unsettle status quo ways of seeing and being.