Interview: Josh Foer and the persistence of memory

Editorial conferences are fraught affairs. There is a rush of facts, opinions and suggestions. It’s a brave man who trusts his memory to retain all the information. ‘S’, a young Russian journalist who lived between the wars, was one such brave man. He could recall perfectly each name, number and hint that his editor had mentioned. This came naturally to him, but at a cost. S had to try to forget every sight and sound that he encountered in everyday life. He was a savant.

S’s gift for memory was phenomenal, but it is not unobtainable. A few years ago, an American journalist called Joshua Foer wrote a book ostensibly about how to improve one’s memory by using self-taught mnemonic tricks. But it doubles as a history of the science of memory, as well as being a piece of participatory journalism in international ‘memory sport’.

Foer’s five year trail led him to the US Memory Championship, which he won at the first attempt.