The Memory Police by Japanese author Yoko Ogawa is an intriguing story about not very remarkable characters.
Location: an unnamed and dystopian island off the coast of Japan.
The Memory Police synopsis
On an unnamed island off an unnamed coast, objects are disappearing: first hats, then ribbons, birds, roses – until things become much more serious. Most of the island’s inhabitants are oblivious to these changes, while those few imbued with no power to recall the lost objects live in fear of the draconian Memory Police, who are committed to ensuring that what has disappeared remains forgotten.
When a young woman who is struggling to maintain her career as a novelist discovers that her editor is in danger from the Memory Police, she concocts a plan to hide him beneath the floorboards. As fear and loss close in around them, they cling to her wiring as the last way of preserving the past.
Book review
- What would you do if important things in your life disappeared?
- And what defines an object or a concept and what defines you?
- Would you still be yourself without a part of yourself or something you love?
- During your lifetime, it is only natural that some things and people disappear as the years pass. Is it better to linger in the past or to move on as if something never existed?
Interested?
Get your copy of The Memory Police from Amazon.
Book details
Title: The Memory Police
Author: Yoko Ogawa
Translator: Stephen Snyder
Publisher: Vintage Publishing
Pages: 288
ISBN (13): 9781784700447
Publication date: 6 August 2020
Discover more books by Yoko Ogawa in my Best Japanese Books list
