So it is not my own idea, but I adopted it for the book and amplified it, because it seemed appropriate for a water-deprived future. The idea that the purity of water is particularly important for tea-making is something I first encountered when reading about the history of tea in China. I have attended a Japanese tea ceremony, and my impression was that every detail is given a lot of thought and attention, water included. One is out of curiosity: have you had experience in hosting or attending a tea ceremony, and do its attendees respect the power of the water? Second: is the tea ceremony a metaphor for life, for everything that holds water? When the water ends, our life’s ceremony is also over. This is emphasized in the novel and is a simple but powerful way of looking at water. Just as when a person dies and water leaves it, so does the tea ceremony end when the water is gone. Will Noria and her father get caught? While the tea is important, the ceremony is as well it is the continued knowledge of how to make and serve tea that provides cohesion with the past. Given the dystopian government in this world, which rations water – and would punish those who break the water rules – life is full of uncertainty.

The family has a secret spring of fresh water that they rely on for making tea. The main character, Noria, is learning the ancient art of being a tea master, from her father. One of Emmi’s recurring motifs in Memory is the importance of cultural, environmental, and traditional continuity. Bringing nature into the story as a force, a main character, and a dwindling but necessary resource is done well with Emmi’s soft and beautiful prose. In the novel, water (like insects, rocks, and wind) becomes a character as, if not more, involved in the story world as its people – the meaning and memory of this character is precious. The title, a double entendre, implies that not only would humans have a longing memory of water in such a world but water would have its own memory. The novel feels like a dream as it takes us into a future world where water is very scarce. It was my favorite book in 2014, the year it was translated into English, and I later interviewed Emmi ( see our interview here). Finnish author Emmi Itäranta’s debut novel, Memory of Water, haunted me to no end.

Memory of Water by Emmi Itäranta