These Memories Do Not Belong to Us: A Novel

For fans of American War and Cloud Atlas, a hauntingly beautiful and prescient debut novel set in a future where a renamed China is the sole global superpower and citizens can record and transfer memories between minds.

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, these memories once belonged to sumo wrestlers and social activists, armless swimmers and watchmakers, all struggling to survive 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 inspires us to see beyond the sheen of convenient truths, revealing stories of sacrifice and love that refuse to be eradicated.

YIMING MA grew up in Toronto and spent a decade in the tech and finance world across New York, 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 have appeared in the New York Times, The Guardian, Literary Hub, Hazlitt, and The Florida Review, and elsewhere. His story “Swimmer of Yangtze” won the 2018 Guardian 4th Estate Story Prize. Born in Shanghai, he now divides his time between Toronto and Seattle. Visit him at www.yiming-ma.com

ISBN: 9780771020384
Format: Hardback
Pages: 224
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
Published: August 12, 2025

"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

"A mesmerizing debut! A deeply felt and meticulously crafted novel that entrances the reader from the first sentence to its last."

—Jason Mott, National Book Award-winning author of Hell of a Book

"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."