The book of the soil focuses on ordinary people and not political or intellectual elite. Main characters of this book are members of a tenant family with a wife named Oshina and a husband, Kanji. The story mentions Oshina to have died due to a self-induced abortion, but she still dominates in the story. The series of flashbacks that Kanji remembers his wife and their past life makes the late Oshina be as present in the book. Otsugi, who is a daughter of the family, was fifteen years of age when her mother passed on, and her father recognizes Continue reading...