The Memory Police

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	Fiction / Ogawa, Yoko	4-week checkout	In transit
Malletts Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Dystopian / Ogawa, Yoko	4-week checkout	Due 12-10-2022
Traverwood Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Dystopian / Ogawa, Yoko	4-week checkout	Due 12-22-2022
Westgate Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Dystopian / Ogawa, Yoko	4-week checkout	Due 12-18-2022

"Originally published in Japan as Hisoyaka na kessho by Kodansha, Tokyo, 1994."
"On an unnamed island off an unnamed coast, things are disappearing. First, animals and flowers. Then objects--ribbons, bells, photographs. Then, body parts. Most of the island's inhabitants fail to notice these changes, while those few imbued with the power to recall the lost objects live in fear of the mysterious 'memory police,' who are committed to ensuring that the disappeared remain forgotten. When a young novelist realizes that more than her career is in danger, she hides her editor beneath her floorboards, and together, as fear and loss close in around them, they cling to literature as the last way of preserving the past"-- Provided by publisher.

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COMMUNITY REVIEWS

Intense Allegory of Loss submitted by sVfGI7Glt2pz7GZgVB90 on June 24, 2020, 11:36pm An excellent Japanese allegory about an island where disappearance is a way of life. Profound deliberation on totalitarianism and conflict in addition to the rhythms of life and death. This book doesn’t lend itself to laid-back analysis. It's somewhat of an allegory, somewhat of a word of warning. This tome will make you see differently, opening up its ideas in discreet ways, knowing that all moments of understanding and elegance are transitory.

An interesting premise submitted by KatieD on August 5, 2021, 1:04pm This story is all about loss and how it feels to not remember what you have lost. I really was moved by the author's writing style and the story, but I wish there was more background given, especially regarding who the memory police are and why this is happening.