Out now · August 20, 2026
The Return of Haruto Takashi
It begins on the boards of the harbor at Hakata, in the spring of 1484.
A man kneels on wet boards. Another takes his swords, one and then the other, and reads out the sentence that strips his name. No one raises a voice. By evening he is aboard a ship with the coast diminishing behind him.
What follows is six years and half a world.
A novel of exile, inheritance, and the long patience of revenge, moving from the pine coasts of Japan to the olive country of the Maghreb and the monsoon lanes of the Indian Ocean.
The series
Three continents, two novels, one stone that holds time still for a moment at a time. Each stands on its own. Read them in order and the second answers the first.
Book One · 2025
Granada, 1487. Catalina lives by her wits in a city the Inquisition is emptying. She carries a map, an astrolabe, and a heritage that has already cost her both parents. The road out runs to Tangier.
About this book
Book Two · 2026
Hakata, 1484. A samurai is stripped of his name and put on a ship. Behind him, inside a compound he cannot enter, a boy is growing up and a woman is keeping count.
About this book
The author
Israeli born, Winnipeg based, an engineer by profession and a novelist by long habit. His family name comes from Toledo, where his family lineage began. His parents lived in Meknes before Israel. The books keep returning to that route, and to the question of what one generation manages to hand the next.
Read the full biographyAlso by Merom Toledano
A collection of poems on distance, memory, and the things that go unsaid inside a family.
Poems on love as it actually arrives, unpolished, mistimed, and worth the trouble.
Where to buy the books