diff --git a/setup/extensions.json b/setup/extensions.json
index dc23e0f421..7c5717f015 100644
--- a/setup/extensions.json
+++ b/setup/extensions.json
@@ -14,6 +14,12 @@
         "linux_libraries": "rt",
         "needs_py2": true
     },
+    {
+        "name": "hyphen",
+        "sources": "calibre/utils/hyphenation/hyphen.c",
+		"libraries": "hyphen",
+		"needs_c99": true
+    },
     {
         "name": "unicode_names",
         "headers": "unicode_names/names.h unicode_names/data-types.h",
diff --git a/src/calibre/constants.py b/src/calibre/constants.py
index 16e80c3460..16a1f0c46e 100644
--- a/src/calibre/constants.py
+++ b/src/calibre/constants.py
@@ -175,6 +175,7 @@ class Plugins(collections.Mapping):
                 'html_as_json',
                 'unicode_names',
                 'html',
+                'hyphen',
                 'freetype',
                 'imageops',
                 'hunspell',
diff --git a/src/calibre/utils/hyphenation/__init__.py b/src/calibre/utils/hyphenation/__init__.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..e69de29bb2
diff --git a/src/calibre/utils/hyphenation/dictionaries.py b/src/calibre/utils/hyphenation/dictionaries.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..0407e63cd6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/calibre/utils/hyphenation/dictionaries.py
@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env python2
+# vim:fileencoding=utf-8
+# License: GPL v3 Copyright: 2019, Kovid Goyal <kovid at kovidgoyal.net>
+
+from __future__ import absolute_import, division, print_function, unicode_literals
diff --git a/src/calibre/utils/hyphenation/hyphen.c b/src/calibre/utils/hyphenation/hyphen.c
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..9154e42335
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/calibre/utils/hyphenation/hyphen.c
@@ -0,0 +1,128 @@
+/*
+ * hyphen.c
+ * Copyright (C) 2019 Kovid Goyal <kovid at kovidgoyal.net>
+ *
+ * Distributed under terms of the GPL3 license.
+ */
+
+#include <Python.h>
+#include <hyphen.h>
+
+#ifdef _MSC_VER
+#define fdopen _fdopen
+#endif
+
+#define CAPSULE_NAME "hyphen-dict"
+
+void
+free_dict(PyObject *capsule) {
+	HyphenDict *dict = PyCapsule_GetPointer(capsule, CAPSULE_NAME);
+	if (dict) hnj_hyphen_free(dict);
+}
+
+
+static PyObject*
+load_dictionary(PyObject *self, PyObject *args) {
+	int fd;
+	if (!PyArg_ParseTuple(args, "i", &fd)) return NULL;
+	FILE *file = fdopen(fd, "rb");
+	if (!file) return PyErr_SetFromErrno(PyExc_OSError);
+	HyphenDict *dict = hnj_hyphen_load_file(file);
+	if (!dict) {
+		fclose(file);
+		PyErr_SetString(PyExc_ValueError, "Failed to load hyphen dictionary from the specified file");
+		return NULL;
+	}
+	PyObject *ans = PyCapsule_New(dict, CAPSULE_NAME, free_dict);
+	if (!ans) fclose(file);
+	return ans;
+}
+
+HyphenDict*
+get_dict_from_args(PyObject *args) {
+	if (PyTuple_GET_SIZE(args) < 1) { PyErr_SetString(PyExc_TypeError, "dictionary argument required"); return NULL; }
+	return PyCapsule_GetPointer(PyTuple_GET_ITEM(args, 0), CAPSULE_NAME);
+}
+
+
+static PyObject*
+simple_hyphenate(PyObject *self, PyObject *args) {
+    char hyphenated_word[2*MAX_CHARS], hyphens[MAX_CHARS * 3] = {0}, *word_str;
+	PyObject *dict_obj;
+
+	HyphenDict *dict = get_dict_from_args(args);
+	if (!dict) return NULL;
+    if (!PyArg_ParseTuple(args, "Oes", &dict_obj, &dict->cset, &word_str)) return NULL;
+    size_t wd_size = strlen(word_str), hwl = 0;
+
+    if (wd_size >= MAX_CHARS) {
+        PyErr_Format(PyExc_ValueError, "Word to be hyphenated (%s) may have at most %u characters, has %zu.", word_str, MAX_CHARS-1, wd_size);
+        PyMem_Free(word_str);
+        return NULL;
+    }
+
+	// we use the simple (old) algorithm since we dont handle replacements
+	// anyway
+    if (hnj_hyphen_hyphenate(dict, word_str, wd_size, hyphens)) {
+        PyErr_Format(PyExc_ValueError, "Cannot hyphenate word: %s", word_str);
+    } else {
+		for (size_t i = 0; i < wd_size; i++) {
+			if (hyphens[i] & 1) {
+				hyphenated_word[hwl++] = '=';
+			}
+			hyphenated_word[hwl++] = word_str[i];
+		}
+	}
+	PyMem_Free(word_str);
+	if (PyErr_Occurred()) return NULL;
+
+	return PyUnicode_Decode(hyphenated_word, hwl, dict->cset, "replace");
+}
+
+
+// Boilerplate {{{
+static char doc[] = "Wrapper for the hyphen C library";
+static PyMethodDef methods[] = {
+    {"load_dictionary", (PyCFunction)load_dictionary, METH_VARARGS,
+     "load_dictionary(fd) -> Load the specified hyphenation dictionary from the file descriptor which must have been opened for binary reading"
+    },
+    {"simple_hyphenate", (PyCFunction)simple_hyphenate, METH_VARARGS,
+     "simple_hyphenate(dict, unicode_word) -> Return hyphenated word or raise ValueError"
+    },
+
+    {NULL}  /* Sentinel */
+};
+
+#if PY_MAJOR_VERSION >= 3
+#define INITERROR return NULL
+#define INITMODULE PyModule_Create(&module)
+static struct PyModuleDef module = {
+    /* m_base     */ PyModuleDef_HEAD_INIT,
+    /* m_name     */ "hyphen",
+    /* m_doc      */ doc,
+    /* m_size     */ -1,
+    /* m_methods  */ methods,
+    /* m_slots    */ 0,
+    /* m_traverse */ 0,
+    /* m_clear    */ 0,
+    /* m_free     */ 0,
+};
+CALIBRE_MODINIT_FUNC PyInit_hyphen(void) {
+#else
+#define INITERROR return
+#define INITMODULE Py_InitModule3("hyphen", methods, doc)
+CALIBRE_MODINIT_FUNC inithyphen(void) {
+#endif
+
+    PyObject* m;
+
+    m = INITMODULE;
+    if (m == NULL) {
+        INITERROR;
+    }
+
+#if PY_MAJOR_VERSION >= 3
+    return m;
+#endif
+}
+// }}}
diff --git a/src/calibre/utils/hyphenation/hyphenate.py b/src/calibre/utils/hyphenation/hyphenate.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..80b0730ff2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/calibre/utils/hyphenation/hyphenate.py
@@ -0,0 +1,8 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env python2
+# vim:fileencoding=utf-8
+# License: GPL v3 Copyright: 2019, Kovid Goyal <kovid at kovidgoyal.net>
+
+from __future__ import absolute_import, division, print_function, unicode_literals
+
+# TODO: lower case word? remove trailing punctuation. abort early if contains = or length < 4 or length > 99
+# TODO: test with replacement words