The Hive and the Honey by Paul Yoon (Marysue Rucci Books) has won the 20th annual Story Prize. Yoon receives $20,000, and the authors of the two finalists--Wednesday's Child by Yiyun Li (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) and Other Minds and Other Stories by Bennett Sims (Two Dollar Radio)--each receive $5,000.
Story Prize director Larry Dark and founder Julie Lindsey selected the three finalists, and three judges--critic and writer Merve Emre, librarian Allison Escoto, and writer Tania James--made the final choice. The judges commented: "The Hive and the Honey is a collection of astonishing breadth, offering a panoramic portrait of Korean diaspora, of lives rescued from the margins of history. These characters reveal themselves most acutely through intimate gestures, moments that infuse the ordinary with lasting wonder and could only be achieved by a writer as patient, curious, and masterful as Paul Yoon.
"The genius of the collection lies in its steadiness of style--Yoon's prose is quiet and fine and, at times, painfully precise--and its variety of genre. Domestic realism sits alongside folk tales, ghost stories, and imperial histories. The present is haunted by the past, and the past is violently and beautifully summoned in the present."
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A shortlist has been released for the €100,000 (about $108,425) Dublin Literary Award, which is sponsored by Dublin City Council to honor a single work of fiction published in English. Nominations are chosen by librarians and readers from a network of libraries around the world.
The winner will be named May 23, as part of the International Literature Festival Dublin. If the winning book has been translated, the author receives €75,000 (about $81,320) and the translator receives €25,000 (about $27,105). This year's shortlisted titles are:
Old God's Time by Sebastian Barry
Haven by Emma Donoghue
If I Survive You by Jonathan Escoffery
The Sleeping Car Porter by Suzette Mayr
Solenoid by Mircea Cărtărescu, translated by Sean Cotter
Praiseworthy (And Other Stories) by Alexis Wright