Saltcrop by Yume Kitasei

The ignorance of our society is the first promise of an impending doom. Based on personal observations, it seems that humans tend to be selective in what they consume and are unconsciously compelled to do so. Take our “for you” pages—an excellent example of the forceful consumption of media that we encounter in our daily lives. We are compelled to comply with content curated by algorithms. Yet, these algorithms are crafted by people subjugated by corporate greed, exhibiting selectivity that favors capitalism and revenues.

While employees, through numbers, can equate possible picks of, let’s say, household tools and product recommendations to improve your quality of life, large corporations preface lies with cheap conducted products that cause environmental degradation and the invasion of the consumer’s privacy. In everything we consume, a greater power lies behind closed walls, censoring all beings from revealing the truth and obscuring the harsh reality of a dying Earth for the sake of affluence and material advancements. What would happen if employees revealed the truth on how consumption is slowly destroying our planet and our humanity?

Through the lens of EcoJustice, Yume Kitasei’s third and most recent dystopian fiction novel, Saltcrop, captures the harsh reality of an ecosystem collapse in a (not-so) dystopian world. Despite personal differences and a disconnect after their mother’s suicide, two sisters, Skipper and Carmen, embark on a long journey to find their missing sister, Nora. A scientist and researcher at the agricultural company “Renewal,” Nora holds vital information on the causes of crop deaths, including blight, climate change, and rising sea levels. After moving to the city and leaving behind Skipper, the youngest and most emotionally impulsive sister, and Carmen, a too-cautiously practical sibling, the sisters' relationships slowly disintegrate, as Nora, the sister who kept them together, prioritizes her work to provide for their family. With greedy corporations hoping to silence Nora’s knowledge about the ongoing blight among plants and the resulting fungal infections caused by pathogens and fungi, Skipper and Carmen must overcome their differences and trudge to find Nora. From the countryside to the city, Skipper and Carmen encounter peculiar, often anomalous, and frightening run-ins with people from nearby islands and other travelers. Told in three parts, the story allows readers to follow the narratives of all three sisters and witness the sacrifices they make to save one another and the world. 

What is most interesting about this story is the interconnectedness of the three sisters, first as victims of capitalism and second as they liberate themselves from it. While initially quite emotionally detached, the three sisters become engrossed in challenges that ultimately reveal the importance of their interdependence and how it enables survival and healing from their traumas, as well as the forceful commodification imposed by companies like Renewal on citizens. Kitasei’s work clearly emphasizes that the Shimizu sisters were entangled in the struggle to break a cycle rooted in exploitative, profit-hungry corporations in their daily lives. Specifically, Skipper, the youngest, collects trash in the polluted sea with their well-worn boat, Bumblebee, to exchange for little income. On the other hand, Carmen hopes to work in healthcare to afford surgery and care after contracting a fungal infection from genetically modified crops. Nora, who is most closely related to commodification, collaborates with predatory companies as an emerging scientist. Indeed, what we witness in this novel is the power of connection and sisterhood, despite their differences, as well as the power of collective action, as the Shimizu sisters resist and defy the corporations that sustain the suffering of all three sisters and the world by exposing the engineered seeds and chemicals that are slowly affecting the health of consumers. 

I firmly believe that Kitasei raises many open-ended questions that help us better understand that a dystopian world isn’t as dystopian as it seems. How do we see the Earth as something we do not simply live in, but a place that must be nurtured? The novel highlights the need not just for activism but for collective organizing to build resistance and community. Organizing doesn’t always mean attracting a large crowd. Instead, it begins within ourselves and the small circles that we surround ourselves with. Still, the step to make a change matters in the risk you are willing to take.  

Yume Kitasei’s Saltcrop is a gripping and masterful work that explores the nuances of daily life and EcoJustice through sisterhood, capitalism, and collective organizing to resist forces that impede change.

I was initially wary of reading this book after reading the synopsis, as I have minimal knowledge of sailing and did not want that lack of understanding to affect my thoughts on the novel. Still, Kitasei delivers sailing in a manner that is easy for readers to digest. Kitasei’s writing will leave you completely absorbed in the suspense and thrill as you follow the adventures of the Shimizu sisters and the struggle of people in this world to regain their health, knowledge, and independence from greedy corporations, all while facing the survival of a failing ecosystem. I highly recommend this book for fans who yearn to replicate the high, poetic delivery of the movie Interstellar, set in a non-space, eco-thriller setting, and the television series and video game duology The Last of Us, which explicitly focuses on humans’ role in ecological shifts and the need for survival. 

Kitasei’s work is deeply engaging, leaving your soul hungry to read page after page. It has increased my awareness of the ecological challenges we often overlook in our environment and health, including the need to highlight critical stories about nature’s suffering and ecological justice, which are lacking in the media we consume. Perhaps the causes of human suffering have already been predicted. As we organize to make the world a better place, we must live out our dreams to change it, rather than succumb to fear and make no change at all.

Saltcrop was published on September 30, 2025, by Flatiron Books.

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