Nobel Prize for Literature 2017 to Kazuo Ishiguro

British author Kazuo Ishiguro, best known for his novel The Remains of the Day, won the Nobel Literature Prize on October 5, the Swedish Academy announced today. The Academy has praised Ishiguro and said “in novels of great emotional force, he has uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world and marked by a carefully restrained mode of expression, independent of whatever events are taking place.”

Ishiguro was born in Nagasaki, southwestern Japan, and moved to Britain with his parents and two sisters in 1960, when he was aged five. His most famous novel is “The Remains of the Day” which won the Man Booker Prize for 1989.it was also adapted into a film. His other important novels are “The Buried Giant” and “Never let me go”.

Mr. Ishiguro told the BBC winning the 2017 Nobel Prize for Literature was a “magnificent honour” and “flabbergastingly flattering”.

“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.

Salman Rushdie on Ishiguro

It must be remembered here that the Swedish Academy came under a lot of fire for their choice of Bob Dylan for the Literature prize last year. This time the academy hoped to “make the world happy.”

Salman Rushdie, a friend of Ishiguro had this to share: Many congratulations to my old friend Ish, whose work I’ve loved and admired ever since I first read A Pale View of Hills. And he plays the “guitar and writes songs, too! Roll over Bob Dylan.”