7 must-read magical realism books like The Memory Police by Yōko Ogawa

If you liked the magical realism plot in The Memory Police by Yōko Ogawa , here is a list of 7 books like this:

Similar categories in Banana Yoshimoto's Kitchen book and Yōko Ogawa's The Memory Police

• japanese literature
• literary fiction
• fiction

Similar categories in Han Kang's The Vegetarian book and Yōko Ogawa's The Memory Police

Similar categories in Ros Schwartz's I Who Have Never Known Men book and Yōko Ogawa's The Memory Police

• literary fiction
• dystopia
• fiction
• science fiction
• adult
• fantasy

"Survival is never more than putting off the moment of death."

-Ros Schwartz, I Who Have Never Known Men

"I thought it was unfair, and then I understood that, alone and terrified, anger was my only weapon against the horror"

-Ros Schwartz, I Who Have Never Known Men

"Look at them. They’re pretending, they behave as though they still have some control over their lives and make momentous decisions about which vegetable to cook first."

-Ros Schwartz, I Who Have Never Known Men

"Only now, I tell myself that what I'd felt for her, the trust that slowly built up, the constant preference for her company and the joy each time I was reunited with her after an expedition were prob…"

-Ros Schwartz, I Who Have Never Known Men

Similar categories in Mona Awad's Rouge book and Yōko Ogawa's The Memory Police

• literary fiction
• magical realism
• fiction
• adult
• fantasy
• audiobook

"If I had beauty, I decided then, I would never throw it away. I would never give it up."

-Mona Awad, Rouge

"I mean, we all have our dark days. Very dark days, sometimes. When our demons come out to play. No one lives entirely in the light, right?"

-Mona Awad, Rouge

"That I can’t protect you from my terrible places that I still go, can’t help but go because no one protected me, no one saved me, no one ever held out their hand and walked me away. But I’m trying to…"

-Mona Awad, Rouge

Similar categories in Mieko Kawakami's All the Lovers in the Night book and Yōko Ogawa's The Memory Police

• literary fiction
• japanese literature
• fiction
• adult
• japan
• audiobook

"It only took me a couple of hours to realise that she was a woman of talents beyond anything I could imagine - even though I was a stranger to such talents myself."

-Mieko Kawakami, All the Lovers in the Night

"The light at night is special because the overwhelming light of day has left us, and the remaining half draws on everything it has to keep the world around us bright."

-Mieko Kawakami, All the Lovers in the Night

"When I felt sleepy I slept, and when I opened my eyes I got up, letting hunger dictate when to head to the fridge or kitchen cabinet to eat some of the things that I'd stocked up on. When supplies ra…"

-Mieko Kawakami, All the Lovers in the Night

"When I felt sleepy I slept, and when I opened my eyes I got up, letting hunger dictate when to head to the fridge or kitchen cabinet to eat some of the things that I'd stocked up on. When supplies ra…"

-Mieko Kawakami, All the Lovers in the Night

Similar categories in Julia Armfield's Our Wives Under the Sea book and Yōko Ogawa's The Memory Police

• literary fiction
• adult
• fiction
• audiobook

"El océano profundo es una casa embrujada: un lugar donde se mueven en la oscuridad cosas que no deberían existir."

-Julia Armfield, Our Wives Under the Sea

"She refused almost every aspect of my help, the way women will when they've been bred to accept little more than the baset civility."

-Julia Armfield, Our Wives Under the Sea

"I don't know why I expected you to read my mind,' I say, when I call back to leave her a message, 'I was just doing what I always do, assuming the world revolves around me."

-Julia Armfield, Our Wives Under the Sea

"The space around us is a claw half grasped, holding tight without quite crushing, and I wish, in the idle way I always wish these days, that I felt more confident in my ability to breathe."

-Julia Armfield, Our Wives Under the Sea

Similar categories in Gerardo Sámano Córdova's Monstrilio book and Yōko Ogawa's The Memory Police

• literary fiction
• magical realism
• fiction
• adult
• fantasy
• audiobook

"The world was scary. Worse, I was scary in it."

-Gerardo Sámano Córdova, Monstrilio

"I wanted him to snap, to finally and absolutely lose it. To break. He was withering. To wither is not the same as to break; to break is to have pieces to put back together, and to wither is to dry up…"

-Gerardo Sámano Córdova, Monstrilio

Similar categories in Eliza Clark's Penance book and Yōko Ogawa's The Memory Police

• literary fiction
• adult
• fiction
• audiobook

"Do you know what happened to her already? Did you catch it in the papers? Are you local? Did you know her? Did you see it on the internet? Did some website the trawls local news for the worst details…"

-Eliza Clark, Penance

Similar categories in Sayaka Murata's Earthlings book and Yōko Ogawa's The Memory Police

• literary fiction
• magical realism
• japanese literature
• fiction
• adult
• fantasy
• japan
• audiobook

"Sobreviver, haja o que houver."

-Sayaka Murata, Earthlings

"O senso comum é uma doença contagiosa e é difícil manter a infecção sozinho."

-Sayaka Murata, Earthlings

"I thought that when I grew up society would brainwash me, but it didn't work."

-Sayaka Murata, Earthlings

"Até quando eu teria de sobreviver? Será que algum dia poderia apenas viver e não sobreviver?"

-Sayaka Murata, Earthlings

Similar categories in Sayaka Murata's Convenience Store Woman book and Yōko Ogawa's The Memory Police

• literary fiction
• japanese literature
• fiction
• adult
• japan
• audiobook

"A convenience store is a world of sound."

-Sayaka Murata, Convenience Store Woman

"People who are considered normal enjoy putting those who aren't on trial, you know."

-Sayaka Murata, Convenience Store Woman

"Anyone who devotes their life to fighting society in order to be free must be pretty sincere about suffering."

-Sayaka Murata, Convenience Store Woman

"Well, I guess anyone who devotes their life to fighting society in order to be free must be pretty sincere about suffering."

-Sayaka Murata, Convenience Store Woman

Similar categories in Bora Chung's Cursed Bunny book and Yōko Ogawa's The Memory Police

• magical realism
• fiction
• science fiction
• adult
• fantasy

"Her husband had pursued an “alternative lifestyle"

-Bora Chung, Cursed Bunny

"One can break the curse, but it is impossible to cure their blindness from greed. They were always ready to wage another war"

-Bora Chung, Cursed Bunny

"But there I remained, standing in the bathroom, waiting for someone to miraculously find me, to release me from my ties to this life."

-Bora Chung, Cursed Bunny

"Once you experience a terrible trauma and understand the world from an extreme perspective, it is difficult to overcome this perspective. Because your very survival depends on it."

-Bora Chung, Cursed Bunny

Similar categories in Mizuki Tsujimura's Lonely Castle in the Mirror book and Yōko Ogawa's The Memory Police

• literary fiction
• magical realism
• japanese literature
• fiction
• fantasy
• japan

"In another world, we were already friends."

-Mizuki Tsujimura, Lonely Castle in the Mirror

"You're battling every single day, aren't you?"

-Mizuki Tsujimura, Lonely Castle in the Mirror

"Her mother always said this. That no matter how disgusted you might be with a friend, you should never speak ill of them."

-Mizuki Tsujimura, Lonely Castle in the Mirror

"Houses just like the one she lived in; tall condos, apartment buildings that looked, from where she stood, like matchboxes. In the distance, she could catch the lights flickering in the supermarket. …"

-Mizuki Tsujimura, Lonely Castle in the Mirror

Similar categories in Ling Ma's Severance book and Yōko Ogawa's The Memory Police

• literary fiction
• dystopia
• fiction
• science fiction
• adult
• audiobook

"New York has a way of forgetting you."

-Ling Ma, Severance

"She says, Only in America do you have the luxury of being depressed."

-Ling Ma, Severance

"Just because you're adequately good at something doesn't mean that's what you should do."

-Ling Ma, Severance

"When other people are happy, I don't have to worry about them. There is room for my happiness."

-Ling Ma, Severance

Similar categories in Satoshi Yagisawa's Days at the Morisaki Bookshop (Days at the Morisaki Bookshop, #1) book and Yōko Ogawa's The Memory Police

• literary fiction
• japanese literature
• fiction
• japan
• audiobook

"It hurts to realize that it might be too late now for anything but regret."

-Satoshi Yagisawa, Days at the Morisaki Bookshop (Days at the Morisaki Bookshop, #1)

"And here I am spending a sleepless night in a strange place. We might not be far from home, but I feel lonely."

-Satoshi Yagisawa, Days at the Morisaki Bookshop (Days at the Morisaki Bookshop, #1)

"In my dream, I was an android maid living in a city in the not-so- distant future. In that neighbourhood, all the buildings were made of used books."

-Satoshi Yagisawa, Days at the Morisaki Bookshop (Days at the Morisaki Bookshop, #1)

"No es cuestión de ser expertos o novatos. Si lo plantea así, ni siquiera yo lo soy tanto. Lo importante es sentir emociones al toparse con un libro."

-Satoshi Yagisawa, Days at the Morisaki Bookshop (Days at the Morisaki Bookshop, #1)

Similar categories in Sayaka Murata's Life Ceremony book and Yōko Ogawa's The Memory Police

• literary fiction
• japanese literature
• fiction
• adult
• japan

"Nowadays, your partner is not necessarily a sex object - this is a wonderful advancement."

-Sayaka Murata, Life Ceremony

"I'm seeking an amicable daily routine with someone I get along well with, like brother and sister, without being a slave to sex"

-Sayaka Murata, Life Ceremony

"Walking like this, feeling like a feral human, even machines and buildings were warm to the touch, and some emitted sounds and vibrations. Their presence was similar to the sounds emitted by life-for…"

-Sayaka Murata, Life Ceremony

"If they tried it, the memories of the wild rooted in their flesh would come back to them, and they would discover that eating the city like this would connect the earth between the gaps in the concre…"

-Sayaka Murata, Life Ceremony

Similar categories in Yōko Ogawa's The Memory Police book and Yōko Ogawa's The Memory Police

• literary fiction
• magical realism
• dystopia
• fiction
• japanese literature
• science fiction
• adult
• fantasy
• japan
• audiobook

"No one can erase the stories!"

-Yōko Ogawa, The Memory Police

"Few people here have any need of novels"

-Yōko Ogawa, The Memory Police

"It's the most beautiful disappearance ever."

-Yōko Ogawa, The Memory Police

"I stood in the middle of that emptiness, feeling myself on the verge of being drawn into its terrible depth"

-Yōko Ogawa, The Memory Police

Similar categories in Mieko Kawakami's Breasts and Eggs book and Yōko Ogawa's The Memory Police

• literary fiction
• japanese literature
• fiction
• japan
• audiobook

"Then there are the real bastards, like my ex,"

-Mieko Kawakami, Breasts and Eggs

"Mi sentivo come un essere privato della carne e della pelle e ridotto a sole ossa. Un carapace enorme completamente cavo."

-Mieko Kawakami, Breasts and Eggs

"We could worry about tomorrow when it came. What mattered most right now is how we would spend the remainder of today, even if it was half over."

-Mieko Kawakami, Breasts and Eggs

"I could see people all around me, but I almost felt like nobody could see me. I heard a train go by, rumbling down the tracks, drawing a thick line between the world and my experience. I was getting …"

-Mieko Kawakami, Breasts and Eggs

Similar categories in Mieko Kawakami's Heaven book and Yōko Ogawa's The Memory Police

• literary fiction
• japanese literature
• fiction
• japan
• audiobook

"Karena kau selalu dilukai, kau sungguh-sungguh memahami seperti apakah orang terluka."

-Mieko Kawakami, Heaven

"The more I looked at it, the less it seemed like something for a house. More like a tiny gravestone."

-Mieko Kawakami, Heaven

"You think about how other people feel. You're so kind. It makes sense. Because we're always in pain, we know exactly what it means to hurt somebody else."

-Mieko Kawakami, Heaven

"People are always dying. It's a perfect truth. No matter how we live our lives, we all die, sooner or later. In which case, living is really just waiting to die."

-Mieko Kawakami, Heaven

Similar categories in Emi Yagi's Diary of a Void book and Yōko Ogawa's The Memory Police

• literary fiction
• japanese literature
• fiction
• japan
• audiobook

"Having a baby isn't easy. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. It's been two thousand years, and it's the same old story, right?"

-Emi Yagi, Diary of a Void

"I'm always so alone. I guess I should be used to it by now. That's the way it is from the moment we come into this world, but I'm still not used to it - how alone we all are."

-Emi Yagi, Diary of a Void

"Maybe that's making a family is all about: creating an environment in which people make space for one another - maybe without even trying, just naturally, to make sure that nobody's forgotten."

-Emi Yagi, Diary of a Void

"Until they arrived, while everyone else was transitioning to winter, putting on coats and sweaters, I was going to stick with my summer dress and my usual work blazer. Dressed in the dazzling flowers…"

-Emi Yagi, Diary of a Void

Similar categories in Asako Yuzuki's Butter book and Yōko Ogawa's The Memory Police

• audiobook
• japanese literature
• fiction
• japan

"Dessert was home-made candied chestnuts, chiffon cake baked with amazake and rice flour, and cups of gingery chai. Biting into the cake, Rika discovered that it was perfectly fluffy, with a pleasing …"

-Asako Yuzuki, Butter

"Soon after, Rika heard the sizzle of butter melting in a hot frying pan. It smelt to her like life itself. Maybe because it was animal fat, there was rough, raw depth and fragrance to its smell, whic…"

-Asako Yuzuki, Butter

"Milk was originally blood. In that case, was the butter in the Babaji story actually a metaphor for all the carnage that took place under the cover of the jungle? What seemed pure, white and creamy h…"

-Asako Yuzuki, Butter

"The whipped butter had already started melting across the waffles' latticed brown surface, creating a golden trickling waterfall that pooled in their hollows. Rika bit into the dough, savoring how ju…"

-Asako Yuzuki, Butter

Similar categories in Yū Miri's Tokyo Ueno Station book and Yōko Ogawa's The Memory Police

• literary fiction
• magical realism
• japanese literature
• fiction
• japan

"There’s that sound again."

-Yū Miri, Tokyo Ueno Station

"To speak is to stumble, to hesitate, to detour and hit dead ends. To listen is straightforward. You can always just listen."

-Yū Miri, Tokyo Ueno Station

"I was always tired. There was never a time I was not tired. Not when life had its claws in me, and not when I escaped from it. I did not live with intent, I only lived. But that’s all over now."

-Yū Miri, Tokyo Ueno Station

"I used to think life was like a book: you turn the first page, and there’s the next, and as you go on turning page after page, eventually you reach the last one. But life is nothing like a story in a…"

-Yū Miri, Tokyo Ueno Station