Ostrov ztracených vzpomínek – Ogawa Jóko (2021)

The totalitarian practices of the secret police on an unnamed island lost somewhere in the Japanese archipelago culminate in a hunt for memory. Gradually and quietly, a strange phenomenon occurs: a certain everyday object, sometimes an entire plant or animal species, disappears from the memories of the inhabitants without warning and permanently. With each such disappearance, people ritualistically bid farewell to the vanished item in a crowd, only to completely forget about it within the next few moments. Those whose memories are inexplicably resistant to forgetting are sought out by the secret police and ruthlessly eliminated. A surreal story with elements that are at times bizarre is woven together by a strong bond of human solidarity between the young heroine—a writer, her elderly guardian, and her publishing editor. However, the story is about much more than just a mere allegory on the theme of totality. We become participants in an unclear world, often lacking rational motivation and pure emotion, and whose essential component is the omnipresent fear that distorts human experience and thought. Thus, it is not a classic modernist dystopia, but rather a postmodern play of the most diverse circumstances. The novel was hidden from the eyes of the Czech reading public for many years and only...