The Memory Police

A Novel

by Yoko Ogawa, Stephen Snyder, 小川洋子

paperback, 288 pages

Published July 28, 2020 by Vintage.

ISBN:: 978-1-101-91181-5

(4 reviews)

**2019 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST

A haunting Orwellian novel about the terrors of state surveillance, from the acclaimed author of The Housekeeper and the Professor.**

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 the 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 her floorboards. As fear and loss close in around them, they cling to her writing as the last way of preserving the past.

A surreal, provocative fable about the …

**2019 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST

A haunting Orwellian novel about the terrors of state surveillance, from the acclaimed author of The Housekeeper and the Professor.**

A surreal, provocative fable about the power of memory and the trauma of loss, The Memory Police is a stunning new work from one of the most exciting contemporary authors writing in any language.

6 editions

Elise reviewed The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa

Moody, Evocative

4 stars

It wasn't for me, but I'm still glad I read it. Ogawa's greyscale, slowly grinding dystopia gives the mind's eye a view of a world where epistemic injustice is extremely unsubtle, and still the people oppressed are unable to give voice to this, in fact directly because of it. The mechanics of the world don't quite make sense -maybe something lost in translation- but once you move past the small things that you think need answers and look at the bigger picture, things begin to take shape. Interesting questions about the setting and happenings of the narrative are left unanswered intentionally, and left as exercises to the reader. I was reminded throughout my reading of Yokohama Kaidashi Kiko- that being a 90s reaction to climate change and this a piece of dystopic literature, but the comparison seems apt to me because of the slow creep of impending doom. The eponymous …

pdotb@wyrms.de reviewed The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa

Melancholy dystopia

5 stars

Skillfully melds the fear of living in an oppressive dystopia with the melancholy of the loss of memories and, first, the objects they're tied to. Tends towards feeling pretty dark, leavened only by the obvious love between the main characters.

Tenzin@bookwyrm.social reviewed The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa

Excellent

5 stars

Even at its darkest, you can still find a glimmer of hope in the strangest of places when you've given up looking. Grasping onto things as if they won't change is so painful. Floating on the wave, allows you to survive albeit in a different way than expected.

Mat reviewed The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa

Review of 'Memory Police' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

I didn't want this book to finish but it has and I loved it! There was something very surreal and oddly comforting about reading a story where everyday things disappear during a pandemic where much of our former lives has disappeared

The Memory Police

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