Kazuo Ishiguro

Kazuo Ishiguro met social worker Lorna MacDougall at the West London Cyrenians homelessness charity in Notting Hill while working as a residential resettlement worker there. They got married in 1986 and have a daughter named Naomi.

Kazuo Ishiguro was born on November 8, 1954 in Nagasaki, Japan, to Shizuo Ishiguro and his wife Shizuko. He has an older sister, Fumiko, and a younger sister, Yoko.

His father, who was a physical oceanographer, moved to Guildford, Surrey, in order to begin a two-year research project at the National Institute of Oceanography. When Kazuo Ishiguro was 15, his father turned down a post at a Tokyo university to stay in England, following which Kazuo Ishiguro formally became a British citizen in 1983.

He initially attended Stoughton Primary School and then got into Woking County Grammar School in Surrey. After finishing his school education in 1973, he travelled through the United States and Canada, and acted as a grouse beater for the Queen Mother in Balmoral.

In 1978, he completed his graduation from Kent University with a bachelor's degree in English and Philosophy. Two years later, he got his master's degree in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia, where Malcolm Bradbury and Angela Carter were his classmates.

Three of Kazuo Ishiguro’s short stories, ‘A Strange and Sometimes Sadness’, ‘Waiting for J’ and ‘Getting Poisoned’, were included in ‘Introduction 7: Stories by New Writers’ in 1981.

In 1982, he published his thesis as his first novel, 'A Pale View of Hills’. The story of Etsuko, a Japanese widow in England, who is trying to cope with her daughter's suicide, earned him the ‘Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize’ in 1982.

In 1983, he published two short stories, 'A Family Supper' in 'Firebird 2: Writing Today' and 'The Summer After the War' in 'Granta 7'. Another of his short stories, 'October 1948' was published in 'Granta 17' in 1985.

His second novel, 'An Artist of the Floating World', is set in post-World War II Japan and focuses on Masuji Ono who reflects on his past career as a political artist of imperialist propaganda. The book, released in 1986, was shortlisted for the 'Booker Prize' and won the 'Whitbread Book of the Year Award' that year.

In 1989, he bagged the 'Man Booker Prize for Fiction' for 'The Remains of the Day', in which butler Stevens narrates in first person his professional and personal relationship with former colleague, housekeeper Miss Kenton. The novel was adapted into an eponymous film in 1993, starring Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson, which went on to win eight 'Academy Award' nominations.

Kazuo Ishiguro is also a screenplay writer who worked on two television films for Channel 4, 'A Profile of Arthur J. Mason' and 'The Gourmet' in 1984 and 1987 respectively. He was the original screenplay writer of the 2003 Canadian film 'The Saddest Music in the World' and also wrote the 2005 drama film 'The White Countess'.

In 2002, after he chose Stacey Kent's 'They Can't Take That Away from Me' for his 'Desert Island Discs', the jazz singer asked him to contribute lyrics to her album 'Breakfast on the Morning Tram'. The album received Grammy nomination in 2009, following which he continued to write songs for her 2011 album, 'Dreamer in Concert', her 2013 album, 'The Changing Lights', and her 2017 album, 'I Know I Dream'.