The stories of Sakurazawa Erica (b. 1963), rooted in the life experiences of people she knows, navigate the turbulent realm of human relationships with a sense of intimacy and emotional honesty. Her imagery has the delicate, minimalist touch of a courtroom sketch artist, as if she were documenting the events of people’s lives as they unfold. We feel emotionally bound to her characters as they wrestle with the moral ambiguity of the crises they face, and we respond with irrepressible empathy.