KAZUO ISHIGUROKAZUO ISHIGURO

Prepared by Milda StockunaiteEnglish philology and Spanish language student

Year 3Faculty of Humanities, Šiauliai University

BiographyBiography• Born in Nagasaki,

Japan, in 1954.• Before attending the

university, he worked as a grouse-beater on the Queen Mother’s estate at Balmoral.

• He enrolled at the University of Kent, Canterbury, where he read English and Philosophy.

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• He worked as a community worker in Glasgow.• Ishiguro earned a bachelor degree of arts with honors

in philosophy and literature.• He completed his master of arts in creative writing at

the University of East Anglia.

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• He worked as a social worker until he was able to make a living as a writer.

• He has been writing full-time since 1982.

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• His first novel, A Pale View of Hills (1982), narrated by a Japanese widow living in England, draws on the destruction and rehabilitation of Nagasaki.

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• Kazuo Ishiguro’s most famous novel is The Remains of the Day.

• The novel won the Booker Prize.

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BibliographyBibliographyNovels•A Pale View of Hills (1982)•An Artist of the Floating World (1986)•The Remains of the Day (1989)•The Unconsoled (1995)•When We Were Orphans (2000)•Never Let Me Go (2005)

Screenplays• A Profile of Arthur J. Mason

(Original Screenplay for Channel 4)[13][14] (1984)

• The Gourmet (Original Screenplay for the BBC; the script was later published in Granta 43)[15] (1987)

• The Saddest Music in the World (Original Story) (2003)

• The White Countess (Original Screenplay) (2005)

Short Fiction•Three short stories in Introduction 7: Stories by New Writers (1981): A Strange and Sometimes Sadness, Waiting for J and Getting Poisoned•A Family Supper - short story first published in 1982•A Village After Dark•Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall (2009)

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• Ishiguro's novels are characterized by the way that the calm expository style and seemingly unimportant concerns of the narrators disguise a world fraught by regrets, unresolved emotional conflicts, and a deep yearning to recapture (and make sense of) the past.

• Ishiguro’s novels deal with self-deception, regret, and personal reflection.

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The Remains of the DayThe Remains of the Day• The Remains of the Day

has become a modern classic after it won not only the Man Booker Prize in 1989, but also was turned into a film. In 1993.

• Historical context is a key aspect of The Remains of the Day, and in this case, the novel takes place during the years leading up to World War II.

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• Stevens' deep examination of the aristocracy's place in England suggests that the novel is less a critique of imperialism and more a struggle to evaluate its legacy.

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Never Let Me GoNever Let Me Go• Never Let Me Go

addresses some contemporary issues.

• Never Let Me Go was extremely well-received critically, and is included in the curriculum of many high-school and college courses.

• It was adapted into a film by Mark Romanek in 2010.

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• Ishiguro highlights many forms of willful ignorance, of issues social (like the organ donations) and personal (like sex and virginity).

• The most common objection raised to cloning and genetic engineering––both in Never Let Me Go and in general––is that it involves 'playing God.'

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ReferencesReferences

1. http://literature.britishcouncil.org/kazuo-ishiguro 2. http://biography.jrank.org/pages/4456/Ishiguro-Kazuo.html 3. http://www.authortrek.com/kazuo_ishiguro_page.html 4. http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/jun/13/kazuo.ishiguro 5. http://biography.jrank.org/pages/4456/Ishiguro-Kazuo.html 6. http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/remains/context.html 7. http://www.enotes.com/remains-day 8. http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/jan/29/never-let-me-go-

kazuo-ishiguro 9. http://novelinsights.wordpress.com/2011/04/15/never-let-me-go-

by-kazuo-ishiguro/

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KAZUO ISHIGUROKAZUO ISHIGURO

Prepared by Milda StockunaiteEnglish philology and Spanish language student

Year 3Faculty of Humanities, Šiauliai University