Paul Yoon

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

1954. À la fin de la guerre de Corée et au sortir des camps de prisonniers établis par les Américains, Yohan, un jeune soldat du Nord, se voit proposer, comme à des milliers de ses camarades d'infortune, de s'expatrier. Il choisit le Brésil, dont il ne sait rien et ne parle pas la langue, et s'installe, en vertu d'un accord passé avec les Nations unies, dans un village sur la côte où il trouve du travail. Bien qu'étranger sur cette terre, Yohan trouve un père en la personne de son employeur, Kiyoshi, un tailleur japonais établi là depuis la fin de la Seconde Guerre mondiale, puis une famille auprès de Peixe, fils de pêcheurs devenu gardien de l'église du quartier, et de deux jeunes orphelins. Mais vouloir se construire un présent n'efface pas un passé douloureux, et Yohan devra se battre pour chasser les démons qui le hantent...   À la manière d'Alessandro Baricco dans Soie , Paul Yoon,  l'auteur d' Autrefois le rivage , saisit l'essence de la vie et sa beauté dans la résilience d'un être qui survit à l'horreur et se réinvente.

From award-winning author Paul Yoon comes a beautiful, aching novel about three kids orphaned in 1960s Laos—and how their destinies are entwined across decades, anointed by Hernan Diaz as “one of those rare novels that stays with us to become a standard with which we measure other books.” Alisak, Prany, and Noi—three orphans united by devastating loss—must do what is necessary to survive the perilous landscape of 1960s Laos. When they take shelter in a bombed out field hospital, they meet Vang, a doctor dedicated to helping the wounded at all costs. Soon the teens are serving as motorcycle couriers, delicately navigating their bikes across the fields filled with unexploded bombs, beneath the indiscriminate barrage from the sky. In a world where the landscape and the roads have turned into an ocean of bombs, we follow their grueling days of rescuing civilians and searching for medical supplies, until Vang secures their evacuation on the last helicopters leaving the country. It’s a move with irrevocable consequences—and sets them on disparate and treacherous paths across the world. Spanning decades and magically weaving together storylines laced with beauty and cruelty, Paul Yoon crafts a gorgeous story that is a breathtaking historical feat and a fierce study of the powers of hope, perseverance, and grace.