The Booker Prizes | Our October Book of the Month: The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa | The Booker Prize Podcast Episode 15 @TheBookerPrizes | Uploaded October 2023 | Updated October 2024, 3 hours ago.
Yoko Ogawa's The Memory Police, translated by Stephen Snyder, is a haunting and provocative fable about the power of memory and the trauma of loss, which was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize in 2020. On an unnamed island, things are disappearing and most of the island's residents are forgetting all about them. It starts small with hats and ribbons but it soon escalates. When a novelist discovers that her editor – who, for some reason, doesn't forget – is in danger from the draconian Memory Police, she concocts a plan to save him. Join us as we explore our latest Book of the Month.
In this episode Jo and James:
- Share a brief author biography
- Summarise the novel's plot
- Consider whether the book is about totalitarian regimes or fascist politics, as many of the book's reviewers suggested, or whether it's about something altogether more mysterious
- Discuss how translations may affect our reading of the book, in quite significant ways
- Wonder whether forgetting is really that bad
- Suggest who should read the book
Reading list:
- The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa, translated by Stephen Snyder: thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/books/the-memory-police
- Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
- The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro
- Diary of a Void by Emi Yagi
Further reading:
- A profile of Yoko Ogawa in the New York Times: nytimes.com/2019/08/12/books/yoko-ogawa-memory-police.html
A full transcript of the episode is available on our website.
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The Booker Prizes on TikTok: tiktok.com/@thebookerprizes
The Booker Prizes on Twitter: twitter.com/TheBookerPrizes
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The Booker Prizes on Instagram: instagram.com/thebookerprizes
The Booker Prize is the leading literary award in the English speaking world, and has brought recognition, reward and readership to outstanding fiction for over five decades. Each year, the prize is awarded to what is, in the opinion of the judges, the best novel of the year written in English and published in the UK and Ireland.
Previous winners include The Testaments by Margaret Atwood, Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie, The Promise by Damon Galgut, Schindler's Ark by Thomas Keneally, Life of Pi by Yann Martel, The Bone People by Keri Hulme and many more.
#TheBookerPrize
Yoko Ogawa's The Memory Police, translated by Stephen Snyder, is a haunting and provocative fable about the power of memory and the trauma of loss, which was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize in 2020. On an unnamed island, things are disappearing and most of the island's residents are forgetting all about them. It starts small with hats and ribbons but it soon escalates. When a novelist discovers that her editor – who, for some reason, doesn't forget – is in danger from the draconian Memory Police, she concocts a plan to save him. Join us as we explore our latest Book of the Month.
In this episode Jo and James:
- Share a brief author biography
- Summarise the novel's plot
- Consider whether the book is about totalitarian regimes or fascist politics, as many of the book's reviewers suggested, or whether it's about something altogether more mysterious
- Discuss how translations may affect our reading of the book, in quite significant ways
- Wonder whether forgetting is really that bad
- Suggest who should read the book
Reading list:
- The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa, translated by Stephen Snyder: thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/books/the-memory-police
- Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
- The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro
- Diary of a Void by Emi Yagi
Further reading:
- A profile of Yoko Ogawa in the New York Times: nytimes.com/2019/08/12/books/yoko-ogawa-memory-police.html
A full transcript of the episode is available on our website.
---
The Booker Prizes on TikTok: tiktok.com/@thebookerprizes
The Booker Prizes on Twitter: twitter.com/TheBookerPrizes
The Booker Prizes on Facebook: facebook.com/TheBookerPrizes
The Booker Prizes on Instagram: instagram.com/thebookerprizes
The Booker Prize is the leading literary award in the English speaking world, and has brought recognition, reward and readership to outstanding fiction for over five decades. Each year, the prize is awarded to what is, in the opinion of the judges, the best novel of the year written in English and published in the UK and Ireland.
Previous winners include The Testaments by Margaret Atwood, Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie, The Promise by Damon Galgut, Schindler's Ark by Thomas Keneally, Life of Pi by Yann Martel, The Bone People by Keri Hulme and many more.
#TheBookerPrize
