Between the (de)construction and the narrative voices in The Memory Police, by Yoko Ogawa

• Grant number: 23/03118-4
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: May 01, 2023
• End date: December 31, 2023
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Literature - Modern Foreign Literatures
• Principal Investigator: Joy Nascimento Afonso
• Grantee: Carolina Harumi Itakura
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências e Letras (FCL-ASSIS). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Assis. Assis , SP, Brazil

Abstract

In this research, we propose to analyze the book "The Police of Memory" (2021, Hisoyaka na Kessho), by contemporary author Yoko Ogawa. As one of the most representative names of the generation of Japanese writers in the 1980s, Ogawa won Japan's greatest literary awards and achieved international renown with the translation of her main works into English and French. Considering its relevance in the literary scenario, we will focus, in an unprecedented way in Portuguese, on this contemporary work that addresses, above all, a critique of the historical manipulation of memory. Our central objective is to analyze the narrative focus and, mainly, how memory is built from it in this novel, which is structured in two plots: a main and a secondary one. For this purpose, we will also review memory theories so that it is possible to deepen their relationship with the narrative focus. Regarding the aforementioned plots, our secondary objective is to describe and analyze them, seeking to understand how they relate to each other.