Author: Yoko Ogawa
Translator: Stephen Snyder
Publisher: Vintage
Paperback
Staff Pick
The Memory Police, located on an unnamed island, cause things to disappear. Once disappeared the memory of them fades and any sign of their existence destroyed in fires or released into the wild. The novelist, our protagonist, and everyone around her, seem to have settled into the routine of disappearances, because even if you wanted to remember you cannot. The names are difficult to pronounce, the smell or feeling, there is nothing. Yōko Ogawa (excellently translated by Stephen Snyder) handles the concept with such care and perfect eeriness.