Yiming Ma

🚨Cover reveal alert!🚨 Yiming Ma’s “These Memories Do Not Belong to Us” is coming August 12 from Mariner Books in the US and McClelland & Stewart in Canada. Read more about the book and the story behind its cover, designed Ploy Siripant at the 💡link in bio💡

This weekend is the annual FOLD (Festival of Literary Diversity) in Brampton, and I genuinely feel grateful to be among this incredible cast of authors featured at the Rose Theatre in these coming days. 📚 The Great Readception on Friday May 1 will feature live jazz composed specifically for the readings of our respective books @sharon.bala @antoniomichaeldowning @theliannz @joss.richard @ms_trippingonair , hosted by @jaelrichardson 🎶🎼🎶 I witnessed Antonio performing at the Literary Cabaret @vancouverwritersfest , and it was lit. 🔥 Also excited for my panel on the Politics of Plot again with Sharon, Liann and Antonio on Saturday morning. They’re brilliant. 🔥 If you’re in Mississauga/ Brampton/ Toronto over these coming days, check these @the_fold events out! I have so much respect for the organizers of this festival and the incredible volunteers who make all of this possible ❤️❤️❤️ #writersfestival #festivalofliterarydiversity ##bramptonevents #thesememories

Snowstorm now, but flying tonight to @tucsonfestivalofbooks ☀️following three flight delays ☃️. Now that I’ve spilled the beans on baby Ellie, it’ll also mark my first nights away from her 💔 Feeling very privileged to be part of the festival and can’t wait to see @eviebromiley and talk #speculativefiction with the incredible authors on my panels this weekend at @uarizona ❤️ 📚 Our World, Shifted with @treize64 and Moniquill Blackgoose, moderated by @betsyl17 on Mar 14 at 4pm 📚 Control and the Speculative Imagination with @nikkierlick and @eshanisurya moderated by @lammeyb on Mar 15 at 11:30am See you soon under the sun, book lovers. 🌵 #writersfestival #tucsonfestivalofbooks #tucsonevents #sciencefiction @marinerbooks @mcclellandstewart

Dear Ellie, “We don’t deserve you.” Your mummy and daddy repeat those words every day about you. The world is burning, but you’re a light in our lives. Diaper blowouts, farts and all, we will always love you. We’ll never abandon you. 🌻 In another month, you’ll hit a hundred days and I can’t wait to see what item you will pick - whether it’ll be a pen or hundred dollar bill, I’m so excited for the rest of our lives together. I adore you endlessly. ❤️ #newborn #firsttimedad #tinyhuman #girldad

To keep up the gratitude this winter season, I wanted to thank @electricliterature & @penamerica for naming These Memories Do Not Belong to Us on their Best Books of 2025 lists. ☃️ To have this novel about memory, survival and resistance recognized by two orgs championing literature and free expression during these times - it means a lot. 🙏 @thedennemichele , @kachwoski , @_preetysidhu , Amanda - thank you. It’s humbling to be named on these lists alongside so many writers I admire. ❤️ Thank you to every bookseller, reader, fellow writer who has engaged or resonated with this book. I will always be grateful. 🌻 #thesememories @mcclellandstewart @marinerbooks #debutnovel #speculativefiction #bestbook

Cockpit, check. 🛫 Line-dancing in Gainesville, check. 🕺Is 2025 really over? And did 2026 really start with a military strike on Venezuela? 😬 How does one reconcile all the highs and lows of a debut book launch, especially a novel with political themes during turbulent times? Without pretending to have all the answers, I’ll start with some gratitude for my recent trips to @vancouverwritersfest and @miamibookfair for festivals, along with a side trip to Gainesville for a dream event at @thelynxbooks with @legroff and @datclaiborne . Thanks to @hurtigleslie and @mitchellakaplan for the invites and supporting These Memories Do Not Belong to Us. To all my fellow presenters at Lyrics Night, @jaelrichardson , @amanda.leduc , Anne for our Fiction Beyond Imagination evening, @bruceholsingerauthor and @alexfosterbooks for our Speculative Fiction panel in Miami. Lauren for hosting Daniel and I, my agents Michelle & Nat, publishers (M&S and Mariner) and all the incredible authors and readers I met along the way. Thank you all🌻 #thesememories @mcclellandstewart @marinerbooks #debutnovel #speculativefiction #dystopianreads

So many to thank this holiday season, so I’ll open with @debutiful , which has not only been a supporter of These Memories Do Not Belong to Us this year, but also an incredibly valuable resource for any reader/ writer who believes in the importance of debut fiction. Anyone who reviews that These Memories reminds them of Story of Your Life by Ted Chiang has my gratitude 🙏 Along the same theme, thanks to @ala_booklist , which also named These Memories a Best First Novel of 2025 and gave it an early starred review before anyone had heard of the book. ❤️ The most rewarding outcome of being on these lists is seeing all these others authors on it whose work I admire and can call friends now after this debut year. @jonvhickey @addie_citchens @karissaychen @thedennemichele @elianaramage and of course, @vitcavage the literary magician who connects all of us. Thank you for welcoming me into this world and continuing along this author journey with me. 🌻 @marinerbooks @mcclellandstewart @harpercollins #thesememories #debutfiction #speculativefiction #dystopianreads #dystopianfiction #bestbook #canlit

FLORIDA! I’d love to see you at some of the LAST events for TRANSPLANTS of the year as @yimingwrites and I roadtrip through the sunshine state 🌞 ! All the details below and at the link in bio. 11/19 (TONIGHT) at @midtownreader in Tallahassee with Helen Brower (huge gratitude to Obie @hillarylcarter for making this possible) 11/20 (TOMORROW) at @thelynxbooks in Gainesville with @yimingwrites and @legroff (Yiming has been a dear confidante over our debut journeys this year and I owe my entire writing career to Lauren. It’s a dream to be able to see the community she’s built at The Lynx) 11/22 (SATURDAY) at @miamibookfair with Shobha Rao, @mirtaojito and @limihut (so grateful to for the opportunity to attend one of the country’s biggest and most storied book fairs!)

Closing out this debut year in Florida this week with two bonus events I’m really excited about 🌻 1. Gainesville on 11/20 w/ @datclaiborne , moderated by @legroff at Lauren’s very own bookstore The Lynx. 🐈 This is truly a full-circle moment for both Daniel and I, being such fans of Lauren Groff’s work and never imagining that we’d get to one day be on the other side of an event with her. Also, @thelynxbooks does such important work not only selling books but particularly banned titles. ❤️ 2. Miami Book Fair is this week, and I’m on a panel on Exploring Moral Responsibility in Sci-Fi and Dystopia w/ @bruceholsingerauthor & @alexfosterbooks over the weekend when @miamibookfair reaches its crescendo. Can’t wait for the conversation and all the fun that this festival is known for 💥 Never thought I’d add more live dates to the long US tour + Toronto/ Vancouver this fall. Grateful to all the bookstores, booksellers, authors and readers who came out. I’m still overwhelmed by all the photos and videos from this journey, but I promise to compile them soon, so that I can one day give the proper thanks that all of you deserve. ❤️❤️❤️ @marinerbooks @mcclellandstewart #thesememories #miamibookfair #speculativefiction #debutfiction

Still wrapping my head around this: THESE MEMORIES DO NOT BELONG TO US is a 2025 Goodreads Choice Award nominee in Science Fiction! 🌻 I’d be grateful if you could take a moment to vote on @goodreads before it closes on Nov 23, especially if the book touched you and you want to support. Link-in-bio. To be in this category among writers I deeply admire is surreal and humbling (@lailawrites , what in the world?) When I began writing this book - imagining a world where memories are traded and resistance means holding onto stories that make us human - I never really expected it to change my life. Enormous gratitude to my teams @marinerbooks @mcclellandstewart , my editors @jessicavestuto @anitachong99 , my Trellis agents @michellesuzann @nedlovesbooks . Our baby is coming in two months so I’m very behind on social media, but I also wanted to thank every bookseller, especially those involved in my book tour, and to everyone who’s read it and shared it. I truly appreciate your support! Thanks for voting ❤️ #goodreadschoiceawards #2025goodreadschoiceawards #goodreads #thesememories #speculativefiction #sciencefiction

Grateful to @charliejaneanders & @washingtonpost for featuring These Memories Do Not Belong to Us alongside such wonderful books by Cheon Seon-Ra and @tashanmehta 🌻 Also to Terry Hong @shelf.awareness for their glowing review. As I got off the plane this afternoon for @vancouverwritersfest - I can’t believe I’m living out my author dream ❤️ “These Memories shines when it depicts such future events…Ma movingly depicts taboo relationships…and dramatizes how fanatical devotion to the government can lure people to their own destruction.” - Washington Post “Yiming Ma gorgeously, spectacularly connects prescient stories in an unforgettable vision of a dystopic future desperate for lasting connection.” - Shelf Awareness @marinerbooks @mcclellandstewart @harpercollins #dystopianreads #speculativefiction #canlit #debutauthor #debutnovel #thesememories #aapi #fiction

These Memories Do Not Belong To Us, by Yiming Ma This is a constellation of stories centred on the idea of memories being manufactured, filtered, or erased entirely. In the near future, the Qin empire is the only global superpower in the world. There is mass surveillance, and citizens are fitted with an intracranial device known as the Mindbank which records and transmits memories between minds. The novel starts with a chart of memories (see slides) and an advisory by the narrator to follow the suggested sequence though they can be read at any sequence. He remains unidentified for the most part; the reader knows only that he inherited his mother’s Mindbank which he knows has a collection of banned memories, which the Censors will soon come and forfeit, together with his freedom. Determined to release his mother’s memories to the world before they are destroyed forever, the narrator lets us in to his mother’s memories, and leaves the readers to decipher why such memories were banned. If you like the idea of 1984 and the concepts in The Memory Police merged into a kaleidescope of the future, and the concept of banned memories, you will likely enjoy this. Ma also describes this as ‘Cloud Atlas-esque’ (which I haven’t read). At some parts the stories felt haunting, chilling, heart-breaking, but also humane & timely. What I found admirable was the width of issues it probes using the concept of a Mindbank - from parenthood to immigration, class reversals, politics, history, surviving disabilities, the cruelties of life. It asks: what if there come a time where recounting an experience or a memory using our voice and words becomes archaic? Or when the fidelity of our spoken words can be tested by sharing memories? What if the day comes where it’s not possible to hide anything, even a thought, or lie? ‘It’s their greatest source of power. Because they don’t want us to know what it’s like to live without fear.’ I’m definitely going to re-read this in future. Giving this 4.2/5! Book courtesy of @times.reads @putrifariza - thank you for this wonderful book! #bookreviewsbybbb #timesreads #thesememoriesdonotbelongtous #yimingma #asianliterature