The gentle poetry of Kazuo Ishiguro: a profound view of the Nobel Prize winner and his writing style

Kazuo Ishiguro , the award -winning literary genius from London, takes us into a world full of poetry and profound stories with his books.

His last novel "Klara and the Sun" (2021) tells of an artificial intelligence that discovers life and love.

From Nagasaki to the New York Times bestseller list - Ishiguro is and remains a master of his field, which not least underlines his appreciation with the 2017 Literature Nobel Prize . In his works, the Japanese native explores the connection between public and private spaces in order to research the structure of memory.

His novels merge public and private spheres in a complex way and create both harmony and dissonance. Ishiguro is an author of boundless imagination and unwavering ambition.

As a realist and absurdist, he has followed new ground with seven novels and an impressive collection of connected stories in the course of his thirty -year career.

In its explanation, the Swedish academy wrote about Ishiguro:

In novels of great emotional strength, he has uncovered the abyss under our illusory feeling of connection with the world ”.

(translated from English)

In an interview published on the Nobel Prize website (source #1 ) , Ishiguro explained his interest in secular connections and explained:

One of the things that I have always interested is how we live in small and large worlds at the same time: a personal area in which we have to try to find fulfillment and love, which inevitably overlaps with a larger world, in politics or even dystopian universes. I think I have always been interested. We live in small and large worlds at the same time and cannot hide one or the other. "

In the following video you can watch the interview yourself:

The gentle poetry of Kazuo Ishiguro

In the world of literature there are authors who touch our hearts with their gentle poetry. One of these extraordinary writers is Kazuo Ishiguro. His books take us into a world full of emotions and profound considerations of human life.

Ishiguro was born in Nagasaki and moved to England at the age of five, where he started his writer's career . With works such as "What remained of the day" , "everything we had to give" and "the buried giant" he has conquered a permanent place in the literature scene.

"A Pale View of Hills" and "An Artist of the Floating World" were known for their examination of the Japanese identity and their melancholic tone. Then he explored other genres, including science fiction and historical fiction.

He was nominated four times for the Booker Prize and won the prize in 1989 for his novel "The Remains of the Day" , which was brought to the big screen in 1993 in 1993.

Salman Rushdie praised the novel as Ishiguro's masterpiece (source #2 ) , in which he said:

He turned away from the Japanese locations of his first two novels and revealed that his sensitivity was not rooted in a certain place, but was capable of traveling and metamorphosis was capable of. "

His work was translated into over fifty languages ​​and both “The Remains of the Day” and “Never Let Me Go” , both very successfully filmed, were sold over a million times. He was knighted for his services to literature in 2018. He also bears the awards of the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des lettre from France and the order of the rising sun, gold and silver star from Japan.

For the film Living from 2022, he was nominated for the Oscar for the best adapted script.

With its unique writing style, Ishiguro creates calm narrative style , gentle melancholy and emotional reluctance in his novels. He skilfully plays over time and lets his characters experience mysterious adventures.

subtle voltage and poetic language that run through his works is particularly fascinating The topics of his novels often revolve around dreams, memories and identity - of meaningful gaps and unspoken words .

Overall, Kazuo Ishiguro manages to combine silence and depth in his work - a combination that, as a reader, enchants us again and again.

Life and career of Kazuo Ishiguro

Early years

Ishiguro was born on November 8, 1954 in Nagasaki, Japan, the son of Shizuo Ishiguro, an oceanographer, and his wife Shizuko. In 1960 the family moved to Guildford, Surrey, since his father was invited to research purposes at the National Institute of Oceanography (today National Oceanography Center).

He only returned to Japan in 1989, almost 30 years later when he took part in the Japan Foundation's short -term visitor program. In an interview with Kenzaburō ōe, Ishiguro explained that the Japanese locations of his first two novels were fictional:

I grew up with a very strong picture of this other country, a very important other country to which I had a strong emotional bond. In England I built this picture in my head all the time - an imaginary Japan. "

Ishiguro is described as a British-Asian author and said in a BBC interview that growing up in a Japanese family in the United Kingdom was of crucial importance and enabled him to look at things from a different perspective than many of his English colleagues.

Musical ambitions

He visited the Stoughton Primary School and then the Woking County Grammar School in Surrey. As a choir boy, Ishiguro Soli sang with his church and school choirs. He also enjoyed music as a teenager and heard songs from artists such as Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell and especially Bob Dylan.

Ishiguro began to learn guitar and write songs, first with the aim of becoming a professional songwriter. After graduating from school in 1973, he took a time -out year and traveled through the United States and Canada, wrote a diary and sent demo bands to record companies. He also worked as a moorhen driver in Balmoral Castle.

In April 1974 he traveled to the USA and tramped along the west coast for several months, captured by the "carefree, youthful idealism" , which was then in the air and shaped this era of the wonderful Seventies.

Ishiguro later thought about his short -lived career as a songwriter and said:

I used to see myself as a kind of music type, but at some point I thought: Actually, I'm not at all. I am much less glamorous. I am one of these people with cord jackets with elbow patches. It was a real descent. "

Student

In 1974 he began studying at the University of Kent in Canterbury, which he completed in 1978 with a Bachelor of Arts in English and Philosophy with distinction.

After completing his BA in 1978, Ishiguro returned to social work. He lived in London for a while and worked for the Cyrenian , an organization that takes care of the needs of homeless. There he met his future wife Lorna Anne Macdougall.

As a student, Ishiguro was interested in detective stories , especially for Sherlock Holmes . In an interview with The Paris Review (source #3 ), he also told about his passion for rock music . He played the piano since he was five and started playing guitar at the age of 15. He heard pop records at the age of about 11, such as Tom Jones.

At the age of 13 he bought his first Dylan album, John Wesley Harding. In the interview, Ishiguro emphasizes that he admired Bob Dylan as a great copywriter. Through Dylan, he probably had his first Contact Us with streams of consciousness and surreal texts. He also discovered Leonard Cohen , who had a literary approach to his texts. Cohen had already published two novels and some booklets.

Although Cohen was Jewish, his pictures were very Catholic - many saints and Madonna. Ishiguro almost felt Cohen's style like that of a French singer. He liked the idea that a musician can be completely independent - you write the songs themselves, sings them themselves and orchestrates them themselves. Ishiguro found this extremely attractive and so he also started writing his own songs.

However, Ishiguro gave up its original dreams of becoming a songwriter for the time being. Instead, he wrote down in 1979 for a course for creative writing at the University of East Anglia (UEA) in Norwich. This was led by Malcolm Bradbury and Angela Carter also worked as a teacher and mentor.

After completing the course in 1980 (Master of Arts), Ishiguro has already received an advance from Faber and Faber for his novel, which was still in progress. In 1981 Ishiguro published his first short story and moved to Cardiff, Wales. In the same year, three of his short stories were published in an anthology called “Introductions 7: Stories by New Writers” by Faber and Faber . In the summer of the same year he moved to London with Lorna (source #4 )

His thesis became his first novel "A Pale View of Hills" , which was released in 1982. The German title is "back then in Nagasaki" .

“Pale View of Hills” tells the story of Etsuko, a middle -aged Japanese woman who lives alone in England and thinks about the suicide of her eldest daughter from her first marriage. The story connects the past and the present in an urgent and sometimes macabre.

While Etsuko reports about the devastation of Japan after World War II, she also experiences the craziness and disasters of her own life. At the beginning of the novel, it seems that Etsuko processes her own tragedy by telling the story of a friend she had in Nagasaki shortly after the war.

This friend wants to leave Japan and move to the USA. She also has a young, restless daughter, whose behavior in parallels with Etsukos has experiences with her own daughter. It is only towards the end of the novel that the uncanny doppelganger dimension is unveiled. At one point Etsuko says:

It is clear to me that the memory can be an unreliable thing; It is often strongly influenced by the circumstances under which one remembers, and this undoubtedly applies to some of the memories that I have collected here. ”

In 1983 he received British citizenship (source #2 ) .

Dealing with your own cultural identity

Kazuo Ishiguro began his literary career with his first two novels playing in Japan. This fact suggests that it was strongly influenced by his cultural descent and the experience of his childhood.

However, Ishiguro repeatedly emphasizes in various interviews that he little familiarity with Japanese literature and that his works are hardly similar to it. In an interview from 1989, Ishiguro spoke about his Japanese heritage and how it affected his upbringing.

He said:

I am not quite like an Englishman because I grew up from Japanese parents in a Japanese -speaking home. My parents felt responsible for staying in touch with the Japanese values. I have a special background. I think differently, my perspectives are a little different. "

With these words, Ishiguro clarified the uniqueness of his cultural background and how it shaped him. A year later, the writer once again commented on this topic and made an interesting note for comparison between himself and other authors:

If I were writing under a pseudonym and could get someone else to pose for my jacket photos, nobody would certainly come up with the idea of ​​saying: 'This type reminds me of this Japanese writer.'

With this statement, Ishiguro tries to clarify that his identity as a writer should not be defined exclusively on the basis of its origin. Although Ishiguro admits that some Japanese writers had a certain influence on his work -especially Jun'ichirō Tanizaki -he also emphasizes the greater influence of Japanese films.

The works of Yasujirō Ozu and Mikio Naruse influenced him. These directors are known for their minimalist style and their ability to present subtle human emotions. This influence can also be seen in Ishiguro's own novels, in which interpersonal relationships and emotional conflicts are often in the foreground.

Overall, these statements by the author Kazuo Ishiguro illustrate its unique cultural background and its distance to traditional Japanese fiction and Japanese literature. Although he is connected to the land of his ancestors, he is more likely to be inspired by other artistic media and develops his very own literary voice.

Ascent to the celebrated bestseller author

Ishiguro's novels often play in the past. one of his best-known works, "Never Let Me Go" , is characterized by science fiction elements and a futuristic tone. Surprisingly, the action of the novel plays in the 1980s and 1990s and represents a parallel world that is very similar to us.

Another work by Ishiguro entitled “The Unconsoled” takes us into a nameless Central European city. Here we experience the life of a protagonist, whose identity becomes increasingly blurred in the course of history. The unusual backdrop of this city increases the feeling of isolation and uncertainty for the reader.

In his famous novel “The Remains of the Day” (in German: what was left of the day ), on the other hand, we dive into the time of the Second World War. The story takes place on a large English country house and tells of a butler named Stevens.

This not only has to preserve his loyalty to his employer, but also deal with the political upheavals that shape this time.

With “An Artist of the Floating World”, Ishiguro is devoted to a nameless Japanese city during the occupation of Japan after the end of the Second World War in 1945. The narrator of this novel is faced with great challenges: he has to deal with his own role during the war and to cope with the fact that the new generation accused him of being part of the misguided foreign policy of Japan.

He has to deal with the ideals of his grandchild generation and realize that his own ideals may have been wrong. Ishiguro himself has explained that he has a special preference for the time before and after the Second World War.

For him, it is crucial moments in history in which values ​​and ideals are put to the test. People have to deal with their supposedly firm beliefs and realize that they may not be as strong as expected.

With the exception of “the buried giant”, Ishiguro's novels follow an ego narrative style . This enables him to dive deeply into the inner life of his protagonists and to authentically present their thoughts and emotions. As a writer, Kazuo Ishiguro was influenced by important authors such as Dostojewski and Proust .

His works were often compared to Salman Rushdie, Jane Austen or Henry James - comparisons, but the Ishiguro rejects. In 2017, Kazuo Ishiguro was finally awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature (source #2 ) .

It was by no means his only award ...

Honors and awards

National or state honors

• 1995: Appointment to the officer of the Order of the British Empire for Services for Literature
• 1998: Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government
• 2018: Order of the rising sun, 2nd class, gold and silver star from the Japanese government
• 2018: Appointment to the Knight Bachelor for Services for the Literature
  Literature Prices
• 1982: Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize for A Pale View of Hills
• 1986: Whitbread Prize for "An Artist of the Floating World".
• 1989: Booker Prize for The Remains of the Day
• 2017: Nobel Prize for Literature
• 2017: Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement

With the exception of "A Pale View of Hills" and "The Buried Giant", all novels of Ishiguros and his short story collection for important awards were drawn into the closer choice. The most important thing is that "An Artist of the Floating World", "When We Were Orphans" and "Never Let Me Go" all got into the closer choice for the Booker Prize, as well as "The Remains of the Day" that won the prize.

A leaked report on the meeting of a jury revealed that the jury between "Never Let Me Go" and "The Sea" by John Banville had to decide before giving the prize at the latter (source #2 ) .

Other awards

• 1983: Publication in the Granta Best Young British Novelists edition
• 1993: Published in the Granta Best Young British Novelists edition
• 2005: "Never Let Me Go" is included in the list of 100 best English -language novels since the magazine was founded in 1923.
• 2008: The Times placed Ishiguro in third place in her list of "50 largest British writers since 1945".
• 2023: Living was nominated for the Oscar 2023 in the best adapted script category. With the nomination, Ishiguro became the sixth Nobel laureate who received an Oscar nomination. Only two individuals, George Bernard Shaw and Bob Dylan, both won. It was also nominated for the BAFTA Award 2022 as the best adapted script.

With his works, he impressively manages to cause deep human emotions and at the same time to question our apparent connection with the world. Kazuo Ishiguro's novels are characterized by a convincing tonality that kidnaps the reader in different times and worlds.

They invite you to deal with the big questions of life and stimulate thought.

Musical excursions

The internationally renowned writer not only celebrated great success with his novels, but also demonstrated artistic versatility A special cooperation combined him with the jazz singer S Tacey Kent and her husband, the saxophonist Jim Tomlinson.

Together, Ishiguro and Tomlinson wrote several songs for Stacey Kents albums. As early as 2002, Ishiguro had chosen a recording of KENTS interpretation of the song “They Can't Take that Away from Me” as one of his desert Island CDs.

This meant that the two artists met personally for the first time and kent the talented author asked to write texts for them. Ishiguro's contributions can be found on various albums from Stacey Kent. He contributed texts to her grammy-nominated album “Breakfast on the Morning Tram” from 2007, including the title song.

also represented on her album “Dreamer in Concert” from 2011. In further cooperation, text articles for their album “The Changing Lights” (2013) and the album “I Know I Dream” (2017) were created.

In addition to this musical work, Kazuo Ishiguro also wrote the Liner Notes to Stacey Kents album "In Love Again", which was released in 2002. These notes provide insights into the history of the music and thus complement Kent's entire work.

The cooperation between Ishiguro and Kent shows that the author knows how to convince not only in fiction, but also lives out his creative streak in other art forms. His texts for Stacey Kents Jazzalben testify to his ability to capture emotions and atmosphere with words.

In an interview, Ishiguro once commented on how his lyrical writing influenced his novel style. He emphasized the meaning of subtext and hints to achieve a deeper level of understanding. This approach had an “enormous influence” on his literary work and gives him the opportunity to read between the lines and to express Terms & Conditions

Cooperation with Stacey Kent was not only a musical cooperation for Kazuo Ishiguro, but also an enrichment for his work as a writer (source #2 ) .

Important influences for the literary work of Kazuo Ishiguro

Kazuo Ishiguro's use of locations in his early novels meant that his ethnicity was emphasized and discussed. This was emphasized in many reviews in which it was pointed out that he was born in Japan, but has grew up in England since he was fifth.

Ishiguro himself explains that the attention he received at the beginning of his career is largely due to his ethnicity. However, he also emphasizes that the emphasis on his ethnic identity and an attempt to read his novels as typical Japanese are poorly thought out.

Ishiguro claims that the calm surface of his first two books is only an expression of his natural voice and that he did not try to write it in an excessive sober Japanese way.

In an interview with Dylan Otto Krider, Ishiguro once said that he wanted to treat universal topics as a writer. It always bothered him a little when people said: "Oh, how interesting it has to be to be Japanese because you feel this, this and that" , and he thought: "Don't we all feel like this?"

The truth is that Ishiguro is a world author : the emotional difficulties and confusion of his characters-the stories of people whose past and often influence their presence and often changes understanding or memory of their own history or identity-have found a universal echo.

Even in novels with a significant Japanese background, it seems to be about the stories of people from all over the world who are plagued by recurring waves of unpleasant memories, are drawn by war or have to live with the burden of missteps and missed occasions.

The car is connected to the western tradition and finds it amusing when reviewers emphasize his Japanese. In interviews he mentions his influences, including Fjodor Dostojewski , Anton Chekhow , Charlotte Brontë and Charles Dickens .

Ishiguro also appreciates the realistic and captivating nature of the literature of the 19th century . He emphasizes the importance of these books as a solid basis for his own letter.

Ishiguro confesses that his “Japanese influences” Junichiro Tanizaki (1886–1965), Yasunari Kawabata (1899–1972), Masuji Ibuse (1898–1993) and Natsume Soseki (1867–1916) (source #5 ) .

However, he adds that the most important Japanese influence in his work is probably the films of directors such as Yasujiro Ozu (1903–63) and Mikio Naruse (1905–69).

In another interview that was led shortly after the publication of “An Artist of the Floating World”, says Ishiguro:

If I take on something from a tradition, then probably from this tradition that tries to avoid everything that is obviously melodramatic or conspiratorial, and that basically tries to remain realistic. "

He also emphasized that it was very important to him that people are always presented as humans when he writes books that play in Japan.

I ask my Japanese characters the same questions as my English characters when it comes to finding out what is really important to them. My experience with Japanese in this area is the same as with all other people. They are like me and my parents. I don't see her as people who walk around and cut their stomach. "

(Source #4).

Characteristic features of his unique writing style

Kazuo Ishiguro's writing style is characterized by a unique simplicity and clarity that immediately captivates the reader.

With subtle choice of words and finely dosed descriptions, he creates an atmosphere of calm and melancholy, which is characteristic of his works. Its precise sentences create a gentle poetry that touches the reader deeply. Ishiguro deliberately leaves space for interpretations and often leaves unspoken words that sail in the reader's memory.

His novels such as "What remained of the day" , "everything we had to give" , "the buried giant" or "the undetected" are characterized by their careful narrative style, in which each detail is chosen carefully. He not only transports stories about life and human relationships, but also deep -seated questions about identity and memory.

The author manages to take the reader into his worlds in a unique way and at the same time stimulate him to think.

Kazuo Ishiguro is undoubtedly one of the most important authors of our time and his books are real treasures for all literary lovers worldwide.

The quiet narrative in "What was left of the day"

In "What was left of the day" Kazuo Ishiguro shows his extraordinary ability to use quiet narrative style

The book tells the story of Stevens, a butler in the manor house Darlington Hall, who reflects on his past life and his decisions on a trip to Cornwall. Ishiguro uses a subtle language and a precise sentence construction to the reserved nature of Steven's mirrors n.

The dialogues are economical and often come as casually, but they contribute to conveying protagonist's understatement This calm narrative man is that Ishiguro succeeds in creating unspeaked pain

The reader is invited to read between the lines and to discover the hidden emotions behind the words. Ishiguro's gentle writing style creates a unique intimacy between the reader and the story and lets us immerse themselves in Stevens' thoughts.

This subtle narrative style makes "what was left of the day" a fascinating reading experience full of quiet poetry. You can find a detailed book review as well as options for the purchase of this unique literary work at Ideahunter .

Gentle melancholy and emotional restraint in "Everything we had to give"

In "Everything we had to give" Kazuo Ishiguro again shows his championship in the presentation of gentle melancholy and emotional reluctance. The novel, published in 2005, tells the moving story of Klara and her friends Tommy and Ruth, who grow up in an apparently perfect world.

But under the surface, a dark reality is bubbling that you cannot ignore. Ishiguro's calm narrative style catches the moods and feelings of his characters sensitively. The subtle voltage between the figures is noticeable, while at the same time there is an atmosphere of inner tornness . The gentle melancholy of the novel is reinforced by Ishigurot's sensitive descriptions.

With his words, he paints pictures of past dreams and unfulfilled hopes - everything his protagonists sacrificed for a higher cause. The characters often keep their true feelings hidden or only express them indirectly.

"Everything we had to give" is another impressive example for Kazuo Ishiguro's gentle poetry.

The game with time and the mysterious in "The buried giant"

In "The Buried Giant", Kazuo Ishiguro takes us into a fascinating world again in which the game plays a central role over time and the mysterious. The novel plays in an alternative England after the Second World War, in which mysterious creatures and mighty magicians exist.

But instead of relying on the usual fantasy clichés, Ishiguro creates a special reduced atmosphere. The protagonists Axl and Beatrice are an older couple who embarks on a trip to find their son. They are faced with their own past and have to face the secrets of their memories.

The game with time is reinforced by flashbacks and dream sequences, which enables the reader to dive deep into the world of thought of the characters. However, there is always a certain level of secret - questions remain unanswered, gaps are deliberately left.

The subtle voltage and the poetic language in "The Unmassed"

In his novel "The Unmassed", Kazuo Ishiguro enchants the reader with his poetic language . The story follows the protagonist Tommy, Kathy and Ruth, who grow up in an apparently idyllic boarding school. But behind the facade of everyday life, unspoken secrets and mysterious occurrences lurk.

Ishiguro masterfully manages to slowly build up the tension and to pull the reader deeper into the story. With his poetic language, even the most inconspicuous moments become meaningful moments of life.

You can literally feel the whisper of the words between the lines and immerse yourself in a world full of quiet emotions and unfulfilled longings. With each sentence, a new picture of our eyes unfolds that stimulates us to think and question our own perception of love, loss and identity.

Ishiguro's art is to make the invisible visible and at the same time leave space for interpretations.

Ishiguro's work: dreams, memories and identity in the interaction of silence and depth

Dreams, memories and identity play a central role in Kazuo Ishiguro's novels. It is this subtle type of storytelling, paired with a gentle melancholy that makes Kazuo Ishiguro's works so unique.

The author dominates the art of creating meaningful gaps and leaving unspoken words. His novels invite the reader to read between the lines and to grasp the quiet nuances.

Due to his masterly mastery of these elements, Kazuo Ishiguro keeps manage to captivate his readers and to immerse themselves in a meaningful poetry full of unspoken words that sounds for a long time.

Source directory:

1. The Nobel Prize : Transcript from an interview with Kazuo Ishiguro , https://www.nobelprize.org/prices/literature/2017/ishiguro/158991-kazzuo-Ishiguro-interview-transcript/
2. Geniuses Club : Kazuo Ishiguro , https://geniuses.club/genius/kuzuo-Ishiguro
3. The Paris Review : Kazuo Ishiguro, The Art of Fiction No. 196, https://www.thparisreview.org/intergen
4. The Punch Magazine : Kazuo Ishiguro: A Writer of the Floating World , https://thepunchmagazine.com/the-byword/non-fiction/kuzuohiguro-a-writer-Fhe-floating-world
5. Mathilda Slabbert : An analysis of the work of Kazuo Ishiguro, his BiCulturalism and his Contribution to New Internationalism, Faculty of Arts (Rand Afrikaans University Johannesburg, 1997)