"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 Magazine, Best Books of Summer 2019) 
"Although, 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 review)
"Ogawa?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 review)

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?
The Memory Police is a beautiful, haunting and provocative fable about the power of memory and the trauma of loss, from one of Japan?s greatest writers.
For readers of The Handmaid's Tale, Fahrenheit 451 and Nineteen Eighty-Four.