British author Kazuo Ishiguro is Nobel prize literature laureate for 2017
British author Kazuo Ishiguro, best known for his novel The Remains of the Day, has won the Nobel Literature Prize on October 5.
The 62-year-old writer, “in novels of great emotional force, has uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world,” the Academy wrote in its citation.
Born in Nagasaki, he moved to Britain with his family when he was five years old, only returning to visit Japan as an adult.
Both his first novel, A Pale View of Hills, from 1982 and the subsequent one, An Artist of the Floating World, from 1986, take place in Nagasaki a few years after World War II.
The themes Ishiguro is most associated with are already present here: memory, time, and self-delusion.
“This is particularly notable in his most renowned novel, The Remains of the Day,” which was turned into a film with Anthony Hopkins acting as the duty-obsessed butler Stevens.
Ishiguro’s writings are marked by a carefully restrained mode of expression, independent of whatever events are taking place.
Apart from his eight books, Mr. Ishiguro has also written scripts for film and television.
The 2016 literature prize went to American songwriter Bob Dylan, and the previous year’s to Belarusian journalist Svetlana Alexievich.
Ms. Danius said the choice of Mr. Ishiguro did not show intention to avoid the controversy sparked by last year’s pick of Mr. Dylan.
The first singer-songwriter to win the prestigious prize, the rock legend didn’t comment on his Nobel for several weeks and then snubbed the formal prize ceremony in Stockholm.
The Academy is known for its cloak-and-dagger methods to prevent any leaks, resorting to code names for authors and fake book covers when reading in public.
Of the 114 laureates honoured since the prize was first awarded to France's Sully Prudhomme in 1901, only 14 are women.
But the Academy insists it doesn't take gender into consideration, nor nationality, language or genre for that matter.
