Author:Yoko Ogawa,Stephen Snyder
Shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2020, an enthralling Orwellian novel about the terrors of state surveillance from one of Japan's greatest writers.
'Beautiful... Haunting' Sunday Times
'A dreamlike story of dystopia' Jia Tolentino
__________
Hat, ribbon, bird rose.
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?
__________
Finalist for the National Book Award 2019
Longlisted for the Translated Book Award 2020
New York Times 100 Notable Books of the Year
'This timeless fable of control and loss feels more timely than ever' Guardian, Books of the Year
'Echoes the themes of George Orwell's 1984, but it has a voice and power all its own' Time
'A novel that makes us see differently... A masterpiece' Madeleine Thien
The Memory Police is a masterpiece: a deep pool that can be experienced as fable or allegory, warning and illumination. It is a novel that makes us see differently, opening up its ideas in inconspicuous ways, knowing that all moments of understanding and grace are fleeting. It is political and human, it makes no promises. It is a rare work of patient and courageous vision
—— Madeleine Thien , GuardianIt's an age since I read a book as strange, beautiful and affecting… this haunting work reaches beyond…to examine what it is to be human… a remarkable writer
—— David Mills , Sunday TimesMasterly...Like Colson Whitehead's Underground Railroad and Mohsin Hamid's Exit West, Yoko Ogawa's novel transforms a familiar metaphor into imaginative truth.
—— Jia Tolentino , The New YorkerIn a feat of dark imagination, Yoko Ogawa stages an intimate, suspenseful drama of courage and endurance while conjuring up a world that is at once recognizable and profoundly strange
—— Wall Street JournalExplores questions of power, trauma and state surveillance...particularly resonant now, at a time of rising authoritarianism across the globe.
—— New York Times, pick of the monthThe fresh take on 1984 you didn't know you needed.
—— Washington PostThis is a work of immense precision that is drawing on allegory, that is drawing on myth, that is drawing on dystopia and is doing that deftly. It is the work of a Japanese master who transcends her cultural context to speak to us on a level that is universal.
—— Ted Hodgkinson, Chair of Judges, International Man Booker PrizeThe acclaimed Japanese writer’s fifth English release is an elegantly spare dystopian fable...Reading The Memory Police is like sinking into a snowdrift: lulling yet suspenseful, it tingles with dread and incipient numbness.
—— New York Times Book ReviewOgawa exploits the psychological complexity of…[a] bizarre situation to impressive effect… her achievement is to weave in a far more personal sense of the destruction and distortion of the psyche
—— Alex Clark , ObserverOne 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 Magazine, Best Books of Summer 2019This timeless fable of control and loss feels more timely than ever
—— Justine Jordan , Guardian, *Books of the Year*A lovely, if bleak, meditation on faith and creativity - or faith in creativity - in a world that disavows both...The Memory Police truly feels like a portrait of today.
—— Wired, Book of the MonthOgawa 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... mesmerizingly direct prose.
—— Japan TimesA work about identity, authoritarianism and self-expression
—— iMargaret Atwood’s excellent The Blind Assassin comes to mind here...remarkably layered...we’re fortunate to have more work by such a uniquely gifted and idiosyncratic writer
—— L A Review of Books**** An allegorical tale about how we are defined and maintained by our memories. It is easy to fall under the thrall of the exquisite sadness pervading the whole experience
—— SFXAlthough, at the outset, the plot feels quite Orwellian, Ogawa employs a quiet, poetic prose to capture the diverse (and often unexpected) emotions of the people left behind
—— Kirkus, starred reviewOgawa’s anointed translator, Snyder, adroitly captures the quiet control with which Ogawa gently unfurls her ominously surreal and Orwellian narrative. The Memory Police loom, their brutality multiplies, but Ogawa remarkably ensures that what lingers are the human(e) connections... As the visceral disappears, somehow the spirit holds on.
—— Booklist, starred reviewFirst it’s small things — bells, ribbons, stamps — that disappear from the cloistered Japanese island where an unnamed novelist toils over her next book and worries about her community’s increasing isolation. With the objects go the memory of them: “It doesn’t hurt,” the protagonist’s mother explains to her, “and you won’t even be particularly sad.” Eventually, the “disappeared” things — paper, springtime — grow in scale and value, and the narrator struggles to avoid the clutches of the titular Memory Police. An unfortunately zeitgeisty novel about censorship, oppression, and the gradual compression of experience under autocratic regimes, this is a deeply traumatizing novel in the best way possible.
—— Hillary Kelly , VultureThe translation of this masterpiece by the acclaimed Japanese author into English this year is cause for celebration
—— Marta Bausells , GuardianTerrifying, surreal and profoundly moving
—— Andy Hedgecock , InterzoneOne of Japan's finest writers serves up a riveting slice of dystopian suspense, which is far more pertinent and reflective of modern society than one would like. A troubling examination of state surveillance and control.
—— JOE, *Books of the Year*Elegant, haunting
—— Jane Shilling , Daily MailThis beautiful and simple novel explores the power of memory and its importance to the soul
—— Essential MarbellaStrange and affectingly beautiful
—— The TimesA timely and powerful literary thriller which makes for a thought-provoking and unsettling read
—— Hair Past a Freckle blogThought provoking and intelligent . . . I cannot recommend highly enough.
—— Amanda Duncan, My Bookish BlogspotOffers a really interesting perspective on how women are represented in life
—— VarietatsIt is insidiously unnerving in such a clever way . . . had me well and truly hooked!
—— Bookish ChatDark, unforgiving, suspenseful and thought-provoking
—— Emma's Bookish CornerCampus novel satire and the high drama of a thriller combine in a fiendishly readable interrogation of the allure of violent fiction
—— SARAH MOSS, GuardianOne of the most believable heroines I've seen on the page in a long time. The final chapters deliver the heart-in-mouth genre denouement we’ve been waiting for
—— TLSA brilliant portrayal of love and complex family relationships, with all the features of a Gothic mystery.
—— PsychologiesA lushly written, psychologically suspenseful narrative that's not easily forgotten.
—— Hephzibah Anderson , Mail on SundayA darkly disquieting thriller... The descriptions are vivid enough to stop you in your tracks, and the narrative draws to a psychologically apt conclusion.
—— Lucy Whetman , TalkTalk NewsA multi-dimensional shocker, where everything is not as clear cut as it initially seems, leading to a devastating conclusion. Fans of the darker and more mysteriously menacing work of Stephen King or the contemporary horror of Andrew Michael Hurley will adore Sisters.
—— David Nobakht , Buzz MagazineJohnson has cultivated a striking style with recurring images and themes... [her] stories contain minimal dialogue and very little straightforward narration. They are instead characterised by the accumulation of sensory detail, the gradual revealing of character, and a building sense of dread.
—— Anna Leszkiewicz , New StatesmanJohnson pulls off a great feat in this book. We are propelled by her story, even while we barely know what it is; absorbed by characters at once abstract yet fully drawn. She allows just enough clarity to pierce through, like flashes of an image amid white noise, until finally we can grasp and appreciate the whole picture that has so thrillingly eluded us.
—— Maria Crawford , Financial TimesSisters echoes Brontë's Wuthering Heights not only in its gothic elements and sombre descriptions of English landscapes but also in the idea of doomed love, love which becomes an omnipotent, harmful power... Sisters is chilling and unrestful in a way many horror stories aren't, the world of the novel itself a disturbing and anxious place.
—— Elizaveta Kolesova , UpcomingAn absorbing tale of sibling love and envy.
—— Citizen FemmeIt's hard to deny the uncanny thrill generated by Johnson's blend of horror, nature writing and magical realism... As dazzling as a photographer's flash.
—— Anthony Cummins , Literary ReviewHeld me rapt until the very end
—— Lucy DiamondI didn't want to put it down
—— Katherine WebbA beautiful and intriguing page-turner
—— Dinah JefferiesRich and atmospheric
—— Rachel Hore