Initially interested in pursuing a songwriting career, inspired by Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan, Kazuo Ishiguro even remembers singing int he church choir. But then literature happened.
With no future plans set, he studied literature and philosophy at the University of Kent in Canterbury. Here he was reading more seriously. Soon the writings of classic as well as contemporary authors such as Charlotte Brontë, Ian McEwan, Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Margaret Drabble influenced him. His first writing piece was for a BBC radio play called Potatoes and Lovers.
In a few years, for a creative writing course at the University of East Anglia, he contemplated starting off with stories of personal experience. He recreated his mother’s stories of her youth in Nagasaki, during the time of atomic bombing. It was accepted by his peers as well as his tutors. The author went on to write books , some of which were made into acclaimed movies.
Ishiguro’s first novel, A Pale View of Hills, was published in 1982. His second novel was An Artist of the Floating World. Both these novels were set in Japan. He drew inspiration from the pre-war aristocracy of England, the countryside and the result was The Remains of the Day. It was published in 1989 which won the Man Booker Prize.
Post that Ishiguro has written many award winning novels The Unconsoled (1995), When We Were Orphans (2000) ,ever Let Me Go (2005) ,The Buried Giant (2015) ,Klara and the Sun (2021).
Nocturnes – Five Stories of Music and Nightfall by Kazuo Ishiguro
The collection focuses on the life of musicians and the play on mood during nightfall. Between these two major themes, relationships are explored. A marriage on the breaking point is shown and how music brings them together. Another couple remember their past years. Sax players and cellists play their pieces while people drift back to what memories they shared.
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