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Shortlisted for the 2020 International Booker Prize. A beautiful, haunting and provocative fable about the power of memory and the trauma of loss from Yoko Ogawa, one of Japan’s greatest writers. Translated by Stephen Snyder.
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 novelist discovers her editor is in danger of being detained by the Memory Police, she desperately wants to save him. For some reason, he doesn’t forget, and it becomes increasingly difficult for him to hide his memories. Who knows what will vanish next?
Yoko Ogawa
About the Author
Writer and novelist Yoko Ogawa has won every major Japanese literary award available.Stephen Snyder
About the Translator
Stephen Snyder is a translator and professor of Japanese Studies at Middlebury College, Vermont, USA.
