Memory of Water is Finnish novelist Emmi Itäranta's debut novel, published in 2014 by HarperCollins. Itäranta's novel is set in a dystopian future in which water has become scarce because of climate change caused by humanity. As a result of the scarcity of war, the world has been thrown into turmoil. There are seemingly constant wars over water. Countries have collapsed. And several other countries have been taken over, or have cultivated alliances with, other unexpected countries.
Memory of Water follows a young woman named Noria Kaiti, who is working to become a tea master so that she will be ready to take over the mantle as her town's tea master when her father dies. Tea masters are the most powerful people in the new dystopian world. The tea masters—and the tea masters alone—know where the precious reserves of water are. When Noria's father dies one day, she is thrust into the role of her town's tea master. But her job will not be easy. The army of her country begins to watch Noria and her town, causing Noria to have a difficult choice: will she choose safety or will she keep her town well-nourished with water, which is becoming increasingly more scarce?
Itäranta did what few other authors were able to do: she wrote her novel in both English and Finnish simultaneously. For Itäranta, Memory of Water is a personal novel. And the novel being personal is reflected in the novel's mostly positive reviews. In a review that skews positively, Kirkus Reviews said that "Itäranta's fine debut is lyrically rendered, vivid and engaging despite a bit too much philosophy and a less-than-satisfying ending."
