The Hive and the Honey: Stories

NYPL Young Lion Yoon (Snow Hunters) ranges far as he investigates shifting identities and cultures in this new collection. A boy searches for his prison-guard father on chilly Sakhalin Island. A New York City denizen freshly out of prison tries to rebuild his life and start a family in upstate New York, with unsteady results. In a story that reads almost like a thriller, a woman travels to Barcelona to seek out a prize fighter who could be her long-lost son. Civil servants in Edo-era Japan guard a Korean orphan, tasked with turning him over to his countrymen even as they grow close. A married couple whose fathers both came from North Korea find that they still face pervasive prejudice about their backgrounds. The crisp, low-key writing is just right, the better to see the stories’ ribs; there’s clear craft here, as well as a generous imagination.