The Memory Police

"Absolutely. In many ways it’s the diametric opposite. We were really struck by the fact that this book was originally written by Ogawa in 1994 and has only just now been translated and published in English. Despite being written decades ago, it really couldn’t feel more contemporary. It’s got this uncanny sense of relevance to the present. I mean, that’s often the case with books – an enduring resonance in books which are constructed masterfully and with great restraint. This is a book where restraint and precision are vital, not only to the voice but to the narrative and the story being told. To give you a brief potted summary of what the story is about: it’s situated on an island off the coast of Japan. On the island, and anywhere in Japan more broadly, objects are policed. Objects can prompt memories. So, it could be a hat, a ribbon, even things like birds; things which are animate, living objects, and things which are inanimate, personal items, as it were. The reason they are policed is that there is a belief on the part of the state that these things can be subversive and can connect us to each other in very potent, powerful ways. It’s a very deft dystopia. It’s a dystopia not interested in technology. There’s nothing particularly sci-fi about this book. This is a book about loss and about the ways in which we are diminished by the deprivation of our memories – that without those things we will lose our identity, our sense of self, our sense of childhood, our sense of culture, the things that connect us more broadly to each other. Support Five Books Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you're enjoying this interview, please support us by donating a small amount . There’s a really beautiful scene where a character encounters a bird for the first time and doesn’t have the word for it, doesn’t know what a bird is, and has to try and find language for it. It’s a really beautiful scene because you’re encountering the strangeness of a bird almost for the first time. But for the character it’s also really unsettling and discombobulating, because they just don’t have the right language for it. So, it’s a novel about the power of naming, the power of language. And it’s written in this extremely restrained prose. Ogawa is just absolutely masterful at this kind of restraint. And it’s also significant that the central figure in the book is a writer, and the relationship they have with their editor who is is being surveilled by the memory police and is increasingly in danger. You asked earlier: Do people need to know the cultural significance and relevance? This is actually a book that, just purely on a universal, emotional level, is absolutely gripping, achingly sad. So beautiful. It resonates on such a profound level that perhaps it will just feel relevant and contemporary at any point in the future. I think it will be something that will last, and last, and last. The translation is as precise as Ogawa and, therefore, absolutely deserving of being on the shortlist."