Two major dictionaries representing Shizuka Shirakawa’s study of writing. Jito examines the formation of Chinese characters, while Jikun treats the relationship between ancient Japanese words and their written characters, opening the study of ancient scripts to wider readers.

Through the forms of characters and the memory of words, these works read the ancient world anew.

Toyoko Yamasaki’s epic novel follows Lu Yixin, a Japanese war orphan left in China, while tracing postwar Sino-Japanese relations. Against the Cultural Revolution, labor reform, and steelworks construction, it pursues human dignity caught between nation and family.

The life of a child torn apart by war overlaps with the postwar history of Japan and China.

A reportage by Shinano Mainichi Shimbun on the lives and human rights of foreign workers. From local communities, it conveys workers’ voices, institutional barriers, and the challenges of coexistence in journalistic prose.

From local settings, it asks what life and rights mean for foreign workers.