A story whose title suggests life in snow country and the thawing of human feeling. As a regional literary-award work, it appears to depict change after coldness and stagnation through close human relationships.

As the snow begins to thaw, human hearts also begin to move.

The title suggests a story about marriage, longing, family, and local ties. Rooted in regional everyday life, it appears to explore the urgency of love and marriage.

Within the pressures of family and place, love and marriage unsettle a person’s way of life.

Set around the Ani mines in the early Meiji period, this novella depicts the desires, sorrows, and longing for salvation among people living in a mining community. Human lives at a site of modernization are joined with the memory of place in a sturdy narrative voice.

Along the silver road of the mine, human desire and prayer intersect.