The Memory Police

days. Soon enough, things are back to normal, as though nothing has happened, and no one can even recall what it was that disappeared.
 
Then she would interrupt her work to lead me back behind the staircase to an old cabinet with rows of small drawers.
 
Go ahead, open any one you like.
 
I would think about my choice for a moment, studying the rusted oval handles.
 
I always hesitated, because I knew what sorts of strange and fascinating things were inside. Here in this secret place, my mother kept hidden many of the things that had been disappeared from the island in the past.
 
When at last I made my choice and opened a drawer, she would smile and place the contents on my outstretched palm.
 
This is a kind of fabric called ribbon that was disappeared when I was just seven years old. You used it to tie up your hair or decorate a skirt.
 
And this was called a bell. Give it a shake ­it makes a lovely sound.
 
Oh, you ve chosen a good drawer today. That s called an emerald, and it s the most precious thing I have here. It s a keepsake from my grandmother. They re beautiful and terribly valuable, and at one point they were the most highly prized jewels on the island. But their beauty has been forgotten now.
 
This one is thin and small, but it s important. When you had something you wanted to tell someone, you would write it down on a piece of paper and paste this stamp on it. Then they would deliver it for you, anywhere at all. But that was a long time ago . . .&

Journal

The Memory Police truly feels like a portrait of today. To await the future is to disappear the present which only accelerates the speed with which now turns to then, and then turns to nothing . . . It's difficult not to see The Memory Police as a comment on creeping authoritarianism. So too is it a lovely, if bleak, meditation on faith and creativity or faith in creativity in a world that disavows both.   Wired (Book of the Month)

In an era where the concept of truth is negotiable and Alexa might be spying on you, Ogawa s taut novel of surveillance makes for timely, provocative reading . . . A harrowing parable about the importance of memory and the profound danger of cultural amnesia.   Esquire

One of Japan s most acclaimed authors explores truth, state surveillance and individual autonomy. Ogawa s fable echoes the themes of George Orwell s 1984, Ray Bradbury s Fahrenheit 451, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez s 100 Years of Solitude, but it has a voice and power all its own.   Time

The novel is particularly resonant now, at a time of rising authoritarianism across the globe. Throughout the book, citizens live under police surveillance. Novels are burned. People are detained and interrogated without explanation. The New York Times

A deeply traumatizing novel in the best way possible.   Vulture

Ogawa lays open a hushed defiance against a totalitarian regime by training her prodigious talent on magnifying the efforts of those who persistently but quietly rebel. The Japan Times

"You won t be forgetting this haunting and imaginative novel anytime soon. Refinery29

A searing, vividly imagined novel by a wildly talented writer . . . Dark and ambitious. Publishers Weekly (starred, boxed review)

"A poignant examination about how struggles and people are interconnected and the fact that security is not enough to hope for . . . Ogawa s prose feel[s] applicable not just to political atrocities like genocide but to climate change or any other crisis made worse by general complacency. The A. V. Club

A taut, claustrophobic thriller. Salon

Ogawa crafts a powerful story about the processing of loss and the importance of memories. Annabel Gutterman, Time

Ogawa s anointed translator, Snyder, adroitly captures the quiet control with which Ogawa gently unfurls her ominously surreal and Orwellian narrative. Booklist (starred review)

Eerily surreal, Ogawa's novel takes Orwellian tropes of a surveillance state and makes them markedly her own. Thrillist

Ogawa employs a quiet, poetic prose to capture the diverse (and often unexpected) emotions of the people left behind rather than of those tormented and imprisoned by brutal authorities. Kirkus Reviews (starred review)