Yoko Ogawa author page

Yoko Ogawa biography

Yoko Ogawa is a Japanese writer of fiction whose books in English include The Diving Pool, The Housekeeper and the Professor, Hotel Iris and Revenge. Her fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, A Public Space and Zoetrope.

The Memory Police is a dystopian novel about an unnamed island where objects disappear and people who remember them live in fear. The English edition was translated from Japanese by Stephen Snyder, published in hardback by Harvill Secker in 2019 and published as a Vintage paperback on 6 August 2020.

The Memory Police was longlisted for the 2020 International Booker Prize, with Pantheon publishing it in the United States and Harvill Secker publishing it in the United Kingdom. It was later shortlisted for the International Booker Prize.

The Memory Police won a 2020 American Book Award. Mina’s Matchbox, translated by Stephen B. Snyder, was published by Vintage on 1 July 2025.