The Hive and the Honey

by Paul Yoon Narrated by Raymond J. Lee

Overview

Winner of The Story Prize
Longlisted for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize
A Time Top 10 Best Fiction Book of 2023 and Must Read Book of 2023
A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice
Named a Best Book of the Year by The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Library Journal, Electric Literature, and the New York Public Library

“Expansive, haunting, and intimate, Paul Yoon's new short story collection The Hive and the Honey...shows Yoon at the height of his powers.” -Sabir Sultan, Pen America

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?

“Absorbing...Yoon details fully realized and flawed characters attempting to wade through the complexities of immigrant life...[and] asks urgent questions about what it really means to belong somewhere.” -Time, 100 Must-Read Books of 2023

Editorial Reviews

BookRiot

Yoon weaves complex tales of belonging and identity, of cultures clashing and building upon each other to create the multitudes that exist within communities.”

From the Publisher

The Hive and the Honey is much more than an exquisite, beautiful collection of short stories. Yoon roves geographic and historical points, catching stories of the Korean diaspora and, in the best way, the way of great literature, locates narratives that would disappear forever if he didn't find them, characters far from home, longing for home, finding ways to reconcile and embrace complex new landscapes. This is a book about all of us. If you let each of these wonderful stories into your soul, you'll feel the way I felt when I read this collection. I was in the hands of a vivid, powerfully honed imagination and came out better, more human, having learned something new about the world.
—David Means, author of Two Nurses, Smoking

"The stories in The Hive and the Honey are geographically and temporally diverse. Each opens an inviting door to a seemingly calm moment in life, only to cast the readers into the deep and murkey undercurrent of history. Amid violence are moments of gentleness; underneath darkness and bleakness are glimpses of light and humor. Yoon is a beautiful and beguiling writer, and should be called a national—or, international—treasure!
—Yiyun Li, Author of A Thousand Years of Good Prayers

Product Details

BN ID:	2940178046968
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster
Publication date:	10/10/2023
Edition description:	Unabridged

Videos