Yoko Ogawa

The Memory Police

This dystopian novel about the terrors of state surveillance and the traumas of loss was originally published in Japan in 1994 as Hisoyaka by Kodansha Ltd., Tokyo. This is the first U.K. edition and is the first edition in English, translated from the Japanese by Stephen Snyder. This copy is signed & stamped by Ogawa on the title page.

Hardcover. First Edition, First Printing. Octavo, dark blue cloth-covered boards with gilt lettering on spine. London: Harvill Secker, 2019. ISBN: 9781846559495. #11149.
Fine in fine dust jacket.

Yoko Ogawa Dystopian Totalitarianism Science Fiction

Additional Details
The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa is a haunting Orwellian novel about the terrors of state surveillance, from the acclaimed author of The Housekeeper and the Professor.

On an unnamed island, objects are disappearing: first hats, then ribbons, birds, roses... Most of the inhabitants are oblivious to these changes, while those few able to recall the lost objects live in fear of the draconian "Memory Police," who are committed to ensuring that what has disappeared remains forgotten. When a young writer discovers that her editor is in danger, she concocts a plan to hide him beneath her floorboards, and together they cling to her writing as the last way of preserving the past. A powerful and provocative novel, elegantly written, and reminiscent of such dystopian classics as Nineteen Eighty-Four and Fahrenheit 451.

Finalist for the 2019 National Book Award for Translated Literature and shortlisted for the 2020 International Booker Prize.