electricliterature.com

Books by Katie Kitamura, Angela Flournoy, and Susan Choi are among the year's most celebrated novels

Imagine memory is a commodity—something that can be bought, sold, shared, edited, and manipulated. Imagine too, that some memories, the stories and truths they attest to, are banned. They’re too dangerous, too subversive. This is the world of These Memories Do Not Belong to Us. Set in a future dominated by the Qin Empire, Ma’s debut follows a young man who has inherited a collection of forbidden memories from his mother. The memories might be the death of him, but they might also sow the seeds for the empire’s downfall. Read Ma’s discussion of his book’s fragmented cover and the frightening pace of modern technology with EL here!