The Memory Police
Reviewed By Sally Bailes October 21, 2026
Author Yoko Ogawa. Translated by Stephen Snyder.
Distributor: Amazon
ISBN: 978-1529988413
Publisher: Vintage Classics
Release Date: 6 August 2026
Website: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1529988411
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Yoko Ogawa’s ‘The Memory Police’ leaves a lingering question on the lips… must you know a person to know a person? Their lived experience, their tragedy, their resilience? In this technological age, we have more access to information than ever before, whether valuable, devastating, or both simultaneously.
A theme well encapsulated in ‘The Memory Police’. In this novel, we follow an unnamed protagonist’s journey as they navigate the invasion of a foreign totalitarian power. A regime with unfathomable power over the people. An invasion swift and unsuspecting. Not unlike totalitarian regimes in times past (e.g. Nazism/Stalinism). Unlike Nazism/Stalinism, the Memory Police don’t have a ‘poster boy’ for the urgent imposition of their worldview.
Interestingly, no person, whether it be a member of the Memory Police or otherwise, is granted a name. It is either a member of the townspeople — distinguished by certain characteristics and skills — or them. (A nod to the us vs. them psychology frequently exploited to manufacture division.)
Ogawa makes a conscious decision to leave her characters unnamed, which in no way impedes the reader’s ability to differentiate and familiarise themselves with each of the unique townspeople introduced. That being said, the members of the Memory Police aren’t afforded the same luxury. Their personhood is void. They are one. Interchangeable in the eyes of the townspeople. Stoic, unfeeling, “dutiful” enforcers devoid of connection or understanding. Indiscriminate, unsympathetic, with a blatant disregard for the humane treatment of others.
The Memory Police, despite their ascension to this all-powerful organisation, started somewhere. As somebody’s child, someone’s niece or nephew, grandchild or friend. Making their actions all the more alien. Ogawa eerily juxtaposes the themes of human connection and fraternity with our capacity for cruelty. The Memory Police adopt a seek-and-destroy mentality reminiscent of prior (and current) totalitarian regimes. They not only outlaw certain objects and ideas, they disappear them entirely.
However, their agenda has a fault. There are certain individuals, “dangerous individuals”, who are unable to forget. A problem remedied with the instruction of the townspeople to report any individual who dares consort with/remember these forgotten objects and concepts: all in order to “protect the peace” and “maintain order”. T
This fearmongering, propagandised approach is indeed a successful ploy at total control. Although loyalty bred out of mistrust is rarely sincere. People comply not out of revere or love but fear. Fear that you manufactured. The downside of powers such as these is that in establishing a harsh and repressive order, people have a tendency to band together in the shadows to maintain what little community they can. The Memory Police, while being an omnipotent and fierce organisation, are still human. Unlike a god, they are unable to see all, hear all, police all. This is both comforting and a worry to the townspeople. They do not know how the Memory Police collect information.
It is typically blind compliance from the townspeople when an item or idea disappeared. Similarly, they do not know who among them is an informer or a harborer. Despite this fact, however, they maintain decency, community, and all keep a lingering sense of loss and deep-seated sorrow.
Many form tight-knit groups with friends and family; others the only acquaintances they have left. A bond of special closeness living in the terror that one day it might be you. Beyond their inner circle, people remain neighbourly. A passing hello, a communal (mandatory) burning of the forgotten, a huddle beside a house being raided. While certainly the Memory Police’s main objective wasn’t to disenfranchise people, the bond between the townspeople, however substantial, is an unsettling and unaccounted-for factor threatening their occupation.
These governments, whether it be their ultimate goal or not, do their best to dehumanise us, strip us of our humanity, whether it be the simple pleasure of manmade objects and ideas or something larger, gradually being chipped away until we are a husk or nothing at all.
Living this way is unfathomable, and yet we have done it many times before, even now. We (being nation-states, ethnicities, religions, cultures, etc.) have each been on both sides of the coin and somehow understand both the reason and the devastation, doomed to repeat the cycle until we are nothing ourselves.