Biography
A Japanese-British novelist, Kazuo Ishiguro is the recipient of a Nobel Prize for Literature, Booker Prize and an OBE for his services to literature.
Born in Nagasaki, Japan, in 1954, he moved to England when he was six years old. As a child and teenager, he was more interested in music than books, singing in several choirs and listening to the likes of Leonard Cohan and Bob Dylan. During his gap year in 1973, he toured America and Canada, sending demo tapes to record companies, but ultimately realised he wasn’t going to be discovered.
He went on to study English and philosophy at university, graduating in 1978 with a BA, then completed his Masters in 1980 on the UEA Creative Writing Course alongside Malcolm Bradbury and Angela Carter. His first novel, A Pale View Of The Hills, was published in 1982.
It was his third novel, The Remains Of The Day, that propelled him to literary stardom, winning the Booker Prize in 1989. To date, he has written over 10 novels and short story collections, and has recently turned his hand to science-fiction: Klara And The Sun, published in 2021, is a futuristic dystopian novel that was longlisted for the Book Prize.
Haunting, compelling and often unsettling, Kazuo Ishiguro’s novels force us to question what it is to be human and our connection to the world around us. While he continues to write novels, he has also achieved his childhood dream of being a musician: he has co-written several songs with jazz singer Stacy Kent, including the 2007 Grammy-nominated album Breakfast On The Morning Tram.
