Kazuo Ishiguro is one of my favourite authors and has rightfully made many appearances here on The Steady Read. Even though Wikipedia exists, and does a far better job at letting you nosy into someone’s life, I felt we could point the spotlight onto Ishiguro and enjoy a basic overview of his life and career.
I’ve been wanting to make these Author Spotlights for a long time, so I’m excited to see how the format performs!
Life & Background
Born in Japan on 8 November 1954, Ishiguro moved to Britain with his parents when he was just five years old. He remains today after taking permanent citizenship in 1983, making him a British author.
He followed a normal life, attending primary and secondary school until 1973, where he took a gap year before studying a BA in English and Philosophy at the University of Kent (1974-1978). Ishiguro then went on to obtain a Master of Arts from the University of East Anglia from 1979-1980.
Prior to, and during, this period of his life, Ishiguro worked on writing lyrics, recording song demos, and dabbling in his first major fiction writing experiences. Not long after obtaining his MA, Ishiguro became a published author and mostly pursued novel writing as his main career.
Ishiguro married Lorna MacDougall in 1986. Their daughter, Naomi Ishiguro, was born six years later in 1992 and is the couple’s only child. Sharing her father’s late entry into the writing world, Naomi Ishiguro published her first book in 2021.
As of mid 2024, Kazuo Ishiguro hasn’t given up writing and now currently sixty-nine years old. Whilst we have no idea whether his main output of novels has now ended, or if he has at least another one or two left within him, Ishiguro has created an enjoyably large amount of work in many literary genres.
Published Works
Ishiguro’s novels, which are the works that he is most famed for, have explored a lot of topics and genres since his debut A Pale View of Hills was published by Faber & Faber in 1982, when he was twenty-seven years old. As of this post, Klara and the Sun stands as his eighth and latest novel after its publication by Faber & Faber in 2021.
Of all his works, his 2005 novel Never Let Me Go is probably the most well-known and acclaimed. The aforementioned Klara and the Sun, alongside his third novel from 1989 The Remains of the Day, are also regarded as some of his best work. I have enjoyed every one of his novels that I have read thus far, but his 1989 release is easily my favourite of his works. I do look forward to reading the last handful of his novels.
Ishiguro also has a range of screenplays, short fiction, song lyrics, and even a short story collection under his belt. There’s no doubt that he is a versatile and capable writer, and a natural creative. If you have never read an Ishiguro book, then I am insisting that you do.
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