Yoko Ogawa | Books & Literature » Fiction
The Memory Police: A Novel
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A haunting, Orwellian novel about an unnamed island where things, and then people, start disappearing from memory, policed by the ominous Memory Police. It delves into themes of memory, loss, and resistance.
On an unnamed island, objects are disappearing: first hats, then ribbons, birds, roses... Most of the inhabitants are oblivious to these changes, while those few able 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 writer discovers that her editor is in danger, she concocts a plan to hide him beneath her floorboards, and together they cling to her writing as the last way of preserving the past. Powerful and provocative, The Memory Police is a stunning novel about the trauma of loss.