The Hive and the Honey: Stories by Paul Yoon

A New York Times, Time, & Literary Hub most-anticipated book of the fall.
From the beloved award-winning author Paul Yoon comes a spectacular collection of unique stories, each confronting themes of identity, belonging, & the collision of cultures across countries & 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 & attempts to build a family.

The Hive & the Honey is a bold & indelible collection by celebrated author Paul Yoon, one that portrays the vastness & 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?

Lauded as a “quotidian-surreal craft-master” (New York magazine), Yoon’s stunning stories are laced with beauty & cruelty, & The Hive & the Honey is the work of an author writing at the very height of his powers.

°°°

Paul Yoon is the author of four previous works of fiction: Once the Shore, which was a New York Times Notable Book; Snow Hunters, which won the Young Lions Fiction Award; The Mountain, which was an NPR Best Book of the Year; and Run Me to Earth, which was one of Time magazine’s Must-Read Books of 2020 & longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction. A recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, he lives in the Hudson Valley, New York.