Forgetting

This personal book explores both the public and the private dimensions of forgetting and its scary Siamese twin, remembering. Forgetting takes in our modern fear of Alzheimer's and dementia; the abuse to which such slogans as 'Remember Auschwitz ' can be put; the human need to bury the dead and our modern inability to do so; tombstone inscriptions and war memorials today; and how poets and novelists help us understand these dilemmas. Gabriel Josipovici's novel The Cemetery in Barnes (2018) was shortlisted for the 2018 Goldsmiths Prize and longlisted for the 2019 Republic of Consciousness Prize.