Meet Mi-ja and Young-sook, two girls from very different backgrounds living on the Korean island of Jeju. They start working in the sea with their village's all-female diving collective, and, over the decades, develop a close bond. But their differences are impossible to ignore: Mi-ja is the daughter of a Japanese collaborator, and Young-sook will one day inherit her mother's position as leader of the divers. Set during a period of Japanese colonialism in the 1930s and spanning to the Korean War and its aftermath, "The Island of Sea Women" is a historical novel about women's friendships and the larger forces that shape them. Full of powerful characters, heartbreak, and triumph, this story is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit.