Categories newsmakers | 2000sPosted on

Paul Yoon ’02

A story by Paul Yoon ’02, “And We Will Be Here,” was only one of 20 included in the 2009 PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories. Yoon’s winning story is also included in his collection, Once the Shore, his first book, published this year by Sarabande Books. These eight stories are linked by their setting, a South Korean island, and form a portrait of the island, spanning 50 years, from just before the Korean War through the present. When asked in a publisher’s interview about this aspect of setting the stories on an imaginary—but realistic—island, while he, himself, has lived his life in the United States, Yoon explains, “Writing, at least for me, is the act of exploring some aspect of the unknown; there is always that underlying sense of entering ‘foreign territory’ whenever I start a story.”
A story by Paul Yoon ’02, “And We Will Be Here,” was only one of 20 included in the 2009 PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories. Yoon’s winning story is also included in his collection, Once the Shore, his first book, published this year by Sarabande Books. These eight stories are linked by their setting, a South Korean island, and form a portrait of the island, spanning 50 years, from just before the Korean War through the present. When asked in a publisher’s interview about this aspect of setting the stories on an imaginary—but realistic—island, while he, himself, has lived his life in the United States, Yoon explains, “Writing, at least for me, is the act of exploring some aspect of the unknown; there is always that underlying sense of entering ‘foreign territory’ whenever I start a story.”