VOL.99/2026.10

Export Case

 

Ripples of Connection: The Cat Is the Answer

 

 

2026.09

 

 

Where the Connection Began

 

Nabiclub returned to the 〈K-Book Copyright Market〉 this year. Overseas publishing markets diverge from domestic ones, and it is precisely within those differences that new possibilities emerge. This discovery is the fundamental reason we participate. What works differs from country to country, press to press, buyer to buyer. That is only natural, since the vitality of publishing comes from diversity. The primary purpose of attending is to identify and cultivate those points of intersection, whether through a market, a theme, a publishing house, or an individual editor.

 

When Nabiclub first attended the Market in 2025 to establish its identity as a press specializing in Korean mystery fiction, we achieved a modest yet deeply meaningful milestone: securing a rights contract with Yilin, a venerable Chinese foreign literature magazine, to publish three works from the 2024 Golden Pen Award Anthology of Korean Mystery Fiction. Among those selections was Jang Woo Seok’s mystery short story, “The Struggles of Cat Detective Ju Gwan-sik,” a narrative following a mathematician who becomes a cat detective. This international deal served as a catalyst, prompting us to reevaluate the potential of the narrative and, above all, its protagonist. I suggested to Jang that he develop the story further with the mathematician at its center. In the end, the initial thread that brought The Cat Is the Answer into the world this April came from a publisher in China.

 

 

 

 

A Six-Figure Preempt in English Within 48 Hours

 

As soon as The Cat Is the Answer was published, we were contacted by multiple agencies eager to represent the book abroad. The fact that agents, whose radar is always tuned to international markets, moved so quickly was a clear sign of the manuscript's potential. Joy Lee at BC Agency, our strategic partner, recognized the novel's appeal immediately, brought in the right translator, prepared an English sample, and launched the pitch overseas. The momentum was immediate. Within 48 hours of submission, we received a six-figure preemptive offer for English-language rights from Random House, the largest publisher in the United States. We formally accepted the offer at 8:00 AM on June 22, just two hours before the 〈2026 K-Book Copyright Market〉 opened its doors.

 

Perhaps because our advance pitching for Nabiclub had left a strong impression, our schedule filled up far beyond expectations. Over two and a half days, we met with 27 buyers representing 15 countries. Pitching a book that had secured a six-figure English preempt within 48 hours of going out proved exceptionally powerful. Throughout the event, it was the book everyone at the market was talking about.

 

Cats have long been a beloved presence in mystery fiction. Jiro Akagawa’s Calico Cat Holmes grew into an enduring series spanning over fifty volumes, while Akif Pirinçci’s international bestseller Felidae, translated into seventeen languages, cast cats as both victims and sleuths. Indeed, felines suit the genre so naturally that they have carved out a dedicated “cat detective” subgenre. Yet Jang Woo Seok’s The Cat Is the Answer takes a distinct turn. Echoing Keigo Higashino’s The Devotion of Suspect X, the novel features a mathematician protagonist who carries the moral weight of his own gift. Through sharp social critique, it elevates the narrative far beyond the bounds of a conventional cat cozy mystery.

 

After a humiliating failure at his doctoral dissertation defense, the protagonist leaves academia to work as a high school math teacher. That quiet routine is broken when a student whose mathematical gift surpasses his own leaps from the school rooftop, an event that pulls him into the pain those around him have kept hidden. One after another, he confronts a dog abandoned to save it from a violent household, a family murder-suicide triggered by academic pressure, and guilt he has turned away from for decades, which resurfaces as he searches for his own missing cat. Featuring a mathematician turned cat detective with a complicated past, this singular novel reframes mathematics not as solving problems on a page, but as navigating the problems of life. Through the process of losing and finding again the many beings in his life, it traces the concept of zero, something we can only encounter through loss, and the ripples it sends through the human heart.

 

As of mid-August, following the English-language preempt, we closed a landmark deal with Rizzoli, an imprint of Italy's Mondadori Group, and are currently reviewing offers from publishers in Taiwan, Indonesia, and Russia. Meanwhile, evaluation requests have poured in from multiple territories including Spain, Brazil, and Germany, and Korean-language translators are currently reviewing the full manuscript to support those detailed evaluations. It feels almost surreal that a novel by an author without established international recognition is drawing this much global attention. Selling foreign rights depends on a complex mix of variables and luck. There's demand built on precedents where similar content succeeded in that country, cultural and emotional resonance, the absence of material or themes that get in the way of localization, and above all, timing, which works like luck.

 

The Cat Is the Answer emerged as the breakout title of the event, drawing sustained interest in both foreign rights and screen adaptation. Three factors came together to make that happen. First, the platform provided by the 〈K-Book Copyright Market〉. Second, a close collaboration with an agency that recognized the novel's potential and moved swiftly to highlight its core through targeted pitching and sample translation. And underlying all of it, the intrinsic charm of the author and the novel itself.

 

 

 

---

Written by Lee Young Eun (Nabiclub Publisher)

She spent many years as an editor across several publishing houses. In 2017, she founded Nabiclub, a press dedicated to mystery fiction, to showcase Korean works that harness the genre’s unique power to construct compelling narratives.