Description
Kazuo Ishiguro is a British-Japanese author. His eight previous works of fiction have earned him numerous honors around the world, including the Nobel Prize in Literature and the Booker Prize. His work has been translated into over fifty languages, and The Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go, both made into acclaimed films, have each sold more than 2 million copies. He was knighted in 2018 for Services to Literature. He also holds the decorations of Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres from France and the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Star from Japan.
Ishiguro was born in Nagasaki, Japan, before moving to Surrey. This combined British and Asian heritage became the backdrop for his novels, and he even stated that the Japanese settings of his first two novels were imaginary: “I grew up with a very strong image in my head of this other country, a very important other country to which I had a strong emotional tie … In England I was all the time building up this picture in my head, an imaginary Japan.” In 1974, he began studies at the University of Kent at Canterbury, graduating in 1978 with a Bachelor of Arts (honours) in English and philosophy. After spending a year writing fiction, he resumed his studies at the University of East Anglia where he studied with Malcolm Bradbury and Angela Carter on the UEA Creative Writing Course, gaining the degree of Master of Arts in 1980. His thesis became his first novel, A Pale View of Hills, published in 1982.
