Kazuo Ishiguro

Have you heard of Kazuo Ishiguro who is a novelist in UK?

He was born in Nagasaki, Japan in 1954 and moved to Guildford, England due to his father’s business when he was 6 years old.  Graduating from Kent University in 1978, he studied literature in the graduate school of East Anglia University.

He became a naturalized citizen of England in 1982 and married to an English lady, Lorna MacDougall.

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Ishiguro is one of the most celebrated contemporary fiction authors in the English-speaking world, having received four Man Booker Prize nominations, and winning the 1989 prize for his novel The Remains of the Day. In 2008, The Times ranked Ishiguro 32nd on their list of “The 50 greatest British writers since 1945″

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I knew him for the first time when he appeared on TV about 6 month ago. He visited Japan for the campaign of his work “Never let me go” which is turned into a movie and he got interviewed for a TV program.

Listening to the interview talk which was spoken by this quiet and stable man, I became really interested in him and wanted to read his works in English.

Ishiguro seldom speaks his mother tongue, Japanese.

Borrowing his words, his Japanese has been held at the same level since he was a kid.

I could have a chance to buy his latest novel “Never let me go” when I visited Birmingham last October. At the book store, I saw a lot of his books were on the shelf and it made me pleased and there was no denying that I felt a little sense of pride in his success as Japanese.

I finished reading the novel in this Christmas holiday season. There were some difficult terms I didn’t know  the meaning and had to check them with a dictionary but most of the sentences and text were plain. It was easy to read compared to the works of Shakespeare or Dickens.

What is a good novel?

This is a good question for us and we have to keep thinking of it.

Ishiguro’s works can answer you.

Of course it was the first time for me to read his text but I was taken on an absent-mindness for a while when I finished reading it.

Reading between the lines, you can see profound implications and sceneries. And you can even feel some kind of wind pressure which is radiated from his words and sentences. And above all, you can bask in the afterglow of the story.

I really appreciate his work and would like to keep reading his other novels. I’m very happy to know this novelist.

Actually, as my another hobby, I write essays and novels.  Some of my works have won prizes in my local committee of literature and appeared in the news paper.  I’m not trying to boast though.  As an amateur writer, the experience to read Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel encouraged me a lot and I was highly-motivated.

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