Memory Wall is a stunning collection of stories set on four continents, penned by the award-winning and extraordinarily eloquent author, Anthony Doerr, whose prose dazzles readers worldwide. This is his second collection, focusing on the theme of memory: the source of meaning and coherence in our lives, the fragile thread that connects us to ourselves and to others.

Every hour, all over the globe, an infinite number of memories disappear. Yet, at the same time, children, surveying territory that is entirely new to them, push back the darkness, form fresh memories, and remake the world.

In the luminous and beautiful title story, a young boy in South Africa comes to possess an old woman's secret, a piece of the past with the power to redeem a life. In The River Nemunas, a teenage orphan moves from Kansas to Lithuania to live with her grandfather and discovers a world in which myth becomes real. Village 113, winner of an O'Henry Prize, is about the building of the Three Gorges Dam and the seed keeper who guards the history of a village soon to be submerged.

In Afterworld, the radiant, cathartic final story, a woman who escaped the Holocaust is haunted by visions of her childhood friends in Germany, yet finds solace in the tender ministrations of her grandson. Every story in Memory Wall is a reminder of the grandeur of life—of the mysterious beauty of seeds, of fossils, of sturgeon, of clouds, of radios, of leaves, of the breathtaking fortune of living in this universe.

Doerr's language, his witness, his imagination, and his humanity are unparalleled in fiction today.