The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See

Fascinating historical fiction. Considerable information interspersed amidst the fictional story and characters. This book describes a culture on a Korean Island Jeju in which women dive in cold water without oxygen and earn a difficult and sometimes deadly living harvesting fish and shellfish while their husbands stay at home and tend the children and cook meals for their family. In the aftermath of WW2 and the division of Korea into North and South, this story unfolds amid the horrific consequences of the resulting murderous discord. In concentric circles expanding outward, this is a story of two girls who develop a touching but problematic friendship which is subsequently torn asunder as a result of a heinous historical massacre of many of the residents of the island. Then their stories and that of their various family members continue to unfold over decades.