Deep Heavy Sea is Yo Tsumoto’s novel about old-style whaling off the Kumano coast and its decline. Set around a major Meiji-era maritime disaster, it portrays pride, love, and the pain of people left behind by history.

In the sea of a fading whaling culture, human cries and love sink into history.

Divorce is Takehiro Irokawa’s fiction about separation and the odd intimacy that remains afterward. Its light touch reveals the lingering affection, awkwardness, and comedy between a man and a woman whose relationship has supposedly ended.

After separation, comedy and loneliness remain between a man and a woman.