BOOKS FROM JAPANThe Memory Police
by Yoko Ogawa
Tags:
Female author
Description:
**Shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2020** On an unnamed island, objects are disappearing: first hats, then ribbons, birds, roses. . . Most of the inhabitants are oblivious to these changes, while those who remember live in fear of the Memory Police. To the people on the island, a disappeared thing no longer has any meaning. It can be burned in the garden, thrown in the river, or handed over to the Memory Police. Soon enough, the island forgets it ever existed. When a young novelist discovers that her editor is in danger of being taken away by the Memory Police, she desperately wants to save him. For some reason, he doesn't forget, and it's becoming increasingly difficult for him to hide his memories. Who knows what will vanish next? 'Beautiful... Haunting' Sunday Times 'This timeless fable of control and loss feels more timely than ever' Guardian
Reviews:
(3 years ago) |
01 Jan, 2022
Deceptively gentle dystopian novel about loss, surveillance, and oppression. Wonderful book.
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(3 years ago) |
11 Sep, 2022
This entry has the wrong book cover and plot synopsis...
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(3 years ago) |
11 Sep, 2022
Thanks for the feedback. We will check and update the info.
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(8 months ago) |
21 Jan, 2025
Unsettling, quiet, sad
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(1 month ago) |
19 Aug, 2025
I didn’t find this a masterpiece as others did. Not sure why I was not engaged. The story can support multiple interesting interpretations - about memory, ageing, disability, mortality, resistance and totalitarianism - but the interest was mostly in devising possible meanings and I’m not sure the story illuminates any of them in any real way. It seems able to support multiple meanings simply because it is empty.
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