The Hive and the Honey

PAUL'S PICK

Short stories that illuminate the lives and hearts within the Korean diaspora. Taking place years before a partitioned country, and leading up to the present day spanning the globe, Yoon dives beneath the roles all humans are expected to play and shows the human heart to be the most powerful political muscle. -PD

From the beloved award-winning author Paul Yoon comes a spectacular collection of unique stories, each confronting themes of identity, belonging, and the collision of cultures across countries and centuries.

A boy searches for his father, a prison guard, on Sakhalin Island. In Barcelona, a woman is tasked with spying on a prizefighter who may or may not be her estranged son. A samurai escorts an orphan to his countrymen in the Edo Period. A formerly incarcerated man starts a new life in a small town in upstate New York and attempts to build a family.

The Hive and the Honey is a “virtuosic” (Vanity Fair) collection by celebrated author Paul Yoon, one that portrays the vastness and complexity of diasporic communities, with each story bringing to light the knotty inheritances of their characters. How does a North Korean defector connect with the child she once left behind? What are the traumas that haunt a Korean settlement in Far East Russia?

Hardcover | 160 pages | 5.50" x 8.37"