FICTION

The Memory Police

by Yoko Ogawa

Panther Bks. 2019. 288p. Tr $25.95. ISBN 9781101870600.

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On an island off the coast of Japan, objects regularly disappear from memory, starting with simple things such as ribbons and perfume, but soon much more serious things are forgotten. This book was written in 1994 but was not translated into English until 2019.

VERDICT Ogawa’s imaginative, timeless dystopian novel is complexly layered, yet it is a simple read on the sentence level.

Reviewed by Elliot Riley, Deerfield Academy, MA , Jul 17, 2020

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