Author, teacher and stay-at-home dad Matt Greene\u2019s first novel,\u00a0Ostrich, won a Betty Trask Award. His latest, The Definitions, is a haunting dystopian novel about a group relearning how to navigate the world after a mysterious illness strips them of their memories. Here are his top five literary dystopias.<\/p>\n
The Memory Police<\/a> by Yoko Ogawa, translated by Stephen Snyder<\/p>\n On an island where, one by one, bells, birds and perfume systematically disappear, the memory police maintain order by destroying evidence of their presence until they can be said never to have existed.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Flame Alphabet<\/a> by Ben Marcus<\/p>\n A book that must have been conceived of three weeks into a school summer holiday. Children\u2019s voices have become toxic, poisoning their parents and hastening a collapse of societal order. Fascinating and terrifying.<\/p>\n The Unconsoled<\/a> by Kazuo Ishiguro<\/p>\n Literalising the dystopia as anxiety dream, pianist Ryder arrives in an unnamed city fallen into moral crisis and convinced its salvation lies in recalibrating its relationship with classical music. The funniest book in the English language.<\/p>\n