Kim, Isabel J
Entry updated 9 November 2026. Tagged: Author.
(1996- ) US attorney and author, previously known primarily for her short fiction. Her first story of genre interest, "Homecoming is Just Another Word for the Sublimation of the Self" in Clarkesworld for March 2021, was expanded into her first novel Sublimation (2026), whose protagonist, emigrating to America from Korea, finds she has left a Doppelganger behind, which is to say she is too a doppelganger, engagingly caught in the complexities of life and Identity in New York.
Kim's "Why Don't We Just Kill the Kid in the Omelas Hole" (February 2024 Clarkesworld) won a BSFA Award, a Locus Award and a Nebula as best short story. She also shared a Nebula for game writing as part of the creative team for A Death in Hyperspace (2024). [JC]
Isabel J Kim
born Morristown, New Jersey: February 1996
works
- Sublimation (New York: Tor, 2026) [hb/]
collections and stories
- Freediver (New York: Tordotcom, 2025) [novella: ebook: first published 24 September 2025 Reactor: na/Mojo Wang]
- The Perpetual Post (New York: Tordotcom, 2026) [novella: ebook: first published 20 May 2026 Reactor: na/Yiran Jia]
links
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