The Island of Sea Women

by Lisa See • 2019

Best friends Mi-ja and Young-sook are old enough to begin working in the sea with their village's all-female diving collective, led by Young-sook's mother. Despite their love for each other, Mi-ja and Young-sook's differences are impossible to ignore. Mi-ja is the daughter of a Japanese collaborator, and she will forever be marked by this association. Young-sook was born into a long line of haenyeo and will inherit her mother's position leading the divers in their village. Beginning during a period of Japanese colonialism in the 1930s and 1940s, through the Korean War and its aftermath, up to the present, the residents of Jeju find themselves caught between warring empires. -- adapted from publisher info.