These Memories Do Not Belong to Us - by Yiming Ma Hardcover

About the Book

"Decades from now, the world is run by an authoritarian state called Qin. In Qin, every citizen is fitted with a Mindbank, an intracranial device capable of not only recording but transferring memories between minds. The technology gives birth to a new economy, referred to as Memory Capitalism, where anyone with means can relive the life experiences of others. It also unleashes opportunities for manipulation-memories can be edited, marketed, and even corrupted for personal gain. When a man inherits his deceased mother's Mindbank--a collection of memories from before, during, and after the global war that landed Qin atop the international food chain--he's unsure what he'll find inside, or whether the Party has gotten to her memories first, altering the experiences she left for him. Either way, he is adamant that he must share them with the world before they are destroyed forever, even if the cost of doing so is his own life"--Provided by publisher.

Book Synopsis

"Ma's brilliantly inventive These Memories Do Not Belong to Us weaves worlds around a central question: What happens when technology enables a totalitarian government to break into the last private frontiers of the internal mind? Chilling, poignant, and uncomfortably timely, Ma's braided memory dispatches explore a future in which the shifting concepts of safety, loyalty, and truth lead nowhere except condemnation." -- Tessa Hulls, author of Pulitzer Prize-winner Feeding Ghosts

For fans of Cloud Atlas and The Power, a hauntingly beautiful and prescient debut set in a future where a renamed China is the sole global superpower.

When I was a boy, my mother used to tell me stories of a world before memories could be shared between strangers...

In a far-off future ruled by the Qin Empire, every citizen is fitted with a Mindbank, an intracranial device capable of recording and transmitting memories between minds. This technology gives birth to Memory Capitalism, where anyone with means can relive the life experiences of others. It also unleashes opportunities for manipulation: memories can be edited, marketed, and even corrupted for personal gain.

After the sudden passing of his mother, an unnamed narrator inherits a collection of banned memories from her Mindbank so dangerous that even possessing them places his freedom in jeopardy. Traversing genres, empires, and millennia, they are tales of sumo wrestlers and social activists and armless swimmers and watchmakers, struggling amid the backdrop of Qin's ascent toward global dominance. Determined to release his mother's memories to the world before they are destroyed forever, the narrator will risk everything--even if the cost is his own life.

Powerful and provocative, These Memories Do Not Belong to Us masterfully explores how governments and media manipulate history to control the collective imagination. It forces us to see beyond the sheen of convenient truths and to unearth real stories of sacrifice and love that refuse to be eradicated.

Review Quotes

"Yiming Ma's stunning debut is deeply imaginative in its portrayal of a near-future dystopia, and profoundly humane in its exploration of memory and the stories that make us who we are."
- Vincent Lam, Giller Prize-winning author of Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures
"Mesmerizing. A deeply felt and meticulously crafted novel that entrances the reader from the first sentence to its last."
- Jason Mott, author National Book Award-winning Hell of a Book
"Extraordinary. A melancholic mosaic of lives brilliantly bearing witness to the ways memories shape and reshape individuals, nations, histories and futures." - Ai Jiang, author of Nebula and Bram Stoker Award-winning Linghun
"Ma movingly depicts taboo relationships... and dramatizes how fanatical devotion to the government can lure people to their own destruction." - Washington Post
"This novel-in-stories, set in a dystopian future in which memories can be downloaded from one mind to another, asks provocative questions about narrative, humanity, and love...The premise of Ma's debut novel provides ample opportunity for both metafictional playfulness and deadly serious commentary on our fraught relationship with technology." - Booklist (starred review)
"A slim and powerful speculative novel about what happens when memories are taken from us and given to everyone. Ma is a brilliant mind with a shining voice. His writing is spellbinding, and his plot and characters are innovative and engaging. Reading it was reminiscent of the first time I read Ted Chiang's Story of Your Life. It made me believe that books can change my brain's chemistry." - Debutiful
"A dangerous inheritance upends everything a young man knows in Ma's timely and impressive debut. Readers of literary dystopian fiction will find much to enjoy in this thought-provoking debut." - Library Journal (starred review)
"Yiming Ma's engaging, inventive debut grips you from its first sentence. . . . Ma marries our current anxiety around surveillance, technology, personal data, and geopolitical unrest with an imagined future where, despite best efforts, stories remain a tool for connection, education, and revolution." - Lillian Li, Women's Prize for Fiction longlisted author of Number One Chinese Restaurant
"Ma's brilliantly inventive These Memories Do Not Belong to Us weaves worlds around a central question: What happens when technology enables a totalitarian government to break into the last private frontiers of the internal mind? Chilling, poignant, and uncomfortably timely, Ma's braided memory dispatches explore a future in which the shifting concepts of safety, loyalty, and truth lead nowhere except condemnation." - Tessa Hulls, author of Pulitzer Prize-winner Feeding Ghosts
"This isn't just a novel. It's a revolutionary experiment in how our memories and histories can save us. By turns heartbreaking and eerily prescient, Yiming Ma's ambitious debut breaks open the hidden parts of us and scatters them across the night sky for you to discover." - Sequoia Nagamatsu, author of How High We Go in the Dark
"A chilling dystopian novel in stories... Ma bravely and lucidly portrays how an authoritarian regime seeks to control people's minds, and how people's lives can be commodified by technology. This timely work leaves readers with much to chew on." - Publishers Weekly