Yiming Ma: These Memories Do Not Belong to Us

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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.

Born in Shanghai, Yiming Ma spent a decade in the tech and finance world across New York, Toronto, London, Berlin and South Africa before writing the dystopian novel These Memories Do Not Belong to Us, set in a world where memories are bought and sold. He attended Stanford for his MBA and also holds an MFA from Warren Wilson College, where he was named the Carol Houck Smith Scholar. His stories and essays appear in the New York Times, The Guardian, The Florida Review, and elsewhere. His story “Swimmer of Yangtze” won the 2018 Guardian 4th Estate Story Prize. He’s a first generation immigrant and despite his travels, he’s still figuring out where home is.

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