Kazuo Ishiguro Brief Biography
Japanese-Born British Novelist, Famous for The Remains of the Day
Aug 10, 2009
Kazuo Ishiguro is a British writer who was born in Japan, the setting of his first two books: A Pale View of Hills and An Artist of the Floating World. He became widely acclaimed with his third novel, The Remains of the Day, a heartwarming story of emotional restraint from a first-person account.
Brief Biography of Kazuo Ishiguro
Kazuo Ishiguro went with his parents to live in London when he was six. He was born on November 8, 1954 in Nagasaki, Japan. With Japanese spoken at home and English learned at school and by talking with friends, his life has been spent in an environment where British and Japanese cultures were freely mixed.
He completed a combined English and philosophy degree at the University of Kent, followed by attending the influential master's course in creative writing at the University of East Anglia.
At the end of the 1970s, he was employed as a community worker in Scotland. When he was 26 years old, his first short stories were published in magazines and his first novel, A Pale View of Hills, followed two years later.
Ishiguro's Japanese-Themed First Two Novels
The Japanese culture is a common thread running through Ishiguro's first novels.
- A Pale View of Hills – The novel's narrator is a Japanese woman living in England who, on returning to Japan, turns from her role of the traditional housewife towards the kind of freedom she discovered in the West.
- An Artist of the Floating World – Ishiguro's second novel, An Artist of the Floating World, is also set in Japan. It provides reminiscences of a painter pondering an artistic career during the pre-war rise of Japanese militarism.
His most successful book, The Remains of the Day, is a highly regarded post-war British novel. The aging butler, Stevens, is a study in emotional restraint and dilemma of what is honourable as he practices servility. He looks back over his life, regretting missed opportunities.
The novel won the 1989 Booker Prize for Best Fiction, an important British literary award. It was later adapted into a popular film in 1993, nominated for an Academy Award starring Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson.
An Insight to Ishiguro's works
A delicate and versatile writer, Kazuo Ishiguro is known to have a keen eye for detail. After the publication of his four highly respected books, he has emerged as one of the foremost British novelists of his time. Evoking a distinctive setting in his books, he uses words sparingly yet with a precise story-telling.
The Remains of the Day won him the Booker Prize and sealed his reputation.
Quoted from Ishiguro:
"Surely I don't have to tell you that our professional duty is not to our own foibles and sentiments, but to the wishes of our employer." ~ Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day
Works by Kazuo Ishiguro
- A Pale View of Hills, 1982
- An Artist of the Floating World, 1986
- The Remains of the Day, 1989
- The Unconsoled, 1995
Sources:
- McGovern, Una, Ed. Chambers Biographical Dictionary. Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap Publishers, 2002.
- Ousby, Ian. The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.
- Payne, Tom. The A-Z of Great Writers. London: Carlton, 1997.
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