The Memory Police: A Novel

Written by:
Yoko Ogawa
Narrated by:
Traci Kato-Kiriyama

Unabridged Audiobook

Ratings
Book
16
Narrator
9
Release Date
August 2019
Duration
9 hours 9 minutes
Summary
*** 2019 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST ***
*** LONGLISTED FOR THE 2020 INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE AND THE 2020 TRANSLATED BOOK AWARD ***
*** NEW YORK TIMES 100 NOTABLE BOOKS OF THE YEAR ***

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 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.
Reviews
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Effie P.

Just finished this exceptional book The Memory Police by Japanese author Yoko Ogawa, which as luck should have it is being adapted into a film by Charlie Kaufman (i.e. Being John Malkovich). Instead of writing a typical plot driven narrative with fully fleshed out characters, Ogawa defies all writers’ rules with her multilayered nuanced novel replete with philosophical themes (warning: this isn’t just another dystopian book)— how do we cope with inter-generational trauma and loss, how does art sustain and even transcend memory and vice versa, who would we be as individuals or as part of a collective without memory and history, how does one hold on to the concept of self while being shaped by said collective, how does one live with compassion for others in the midst of so much tragedy, how can the human spirit rise above mundaneness and how do we come to terms with our human condition (and with it the ultimate loss of our bodies and our consciousness)?

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Kristi R.

Oh so very, VERY slow. I kept waiting for something exciting to happen... it never did. That's $15 and 8 hours of my life I'll never get back.

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