British novelist Kazuo Ishiguro has won the 2017 Nobel Prize for Literature. The author, 62, has written 8 novels, multiple screenplays and several short stories. Two of his novels have been adapted into renowned films, and he won the Booker Prize for The Remains of the Day in 1989.
Speaking to the BBC, Ishiguro said he was extremely flattered by the award. “It’s a magnificent honour, mainly because it means that I’m in the footsteps of the greatest authors that have lived, so that’s a terrific commendation.” He added that he hoped all Nobel Prize recipients would use their unique position to do good in the world. “I’ll be deeply moved if I could in some way be part of some sort of climate this year in contributing to some sort of positive atmosphere at a very uncertain time.”
Ishiguro was born in Nagasaki, Japan, and moved to England when he was 5. He completed a Master of Arts in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia and published his first novel, A Pale View of Hills, in 1982. Themes of time and memory are prominent throughout his work.
Secretary of the Swedish Academy, Sara Danius, said Ishiguro is a powerful writer “who, in novels of great emotional force, has uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world.” Adding that Ishiguro is a unique author, Danius said “he’s developed an aesthetic universe all of his own.”
