British author, Kazuo Ishiguro, was Thursday named winner of the Nobel Literature Prize by the Swedish Academy.
The 62-year-old, “in novels of great emotional force, has uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world,” the Academy wrote in its citation.
Ishiguro has written eight books as well as scripts for film and television. He won the Man Booker Prize in 1989 for The Remains of the Day.
Born in Nagasaki, he moved to Britain with his family when he was five years old, only returning to visit Japan as an adult.
Both his first novel A Pale View of Hills from 1982 and the subsequent one, An Artist of the Floating World from 1986, take place in Nagasaki a few years after World War II.
“The themes Ishiguro is most associated with are already present here: memory, time, and self-delusion,” the Academy said.
“This is particularly notable in his most renowned novel, The Remains of the Day, which was turned into a film with Anthony Hopkins acting as the duty-obsessed butler Stevens.
“Ishiguro’s writings are marked by a carefully restrained mode of expression, independent of whatever events are taking place,” it said.
In a 1989 interview with Bomb Magazine, Ishiguro said: “I tend to be attracted to pre-war and post-war settings because I’m interested in this business of values and ideals being tested, and people having to face up to the notion that their ideals weren’t quite what they thought they were before the test came.”
Ishiguro was not among those tipped as a favourite for this year’s Nobel.
His publisher Faber & Faber wrote on Twitter after the announcement, “We’re THRILLED Kazuo Ishiguro has won the Nobel Prize!”
Last year, the 18 members of the Swedish Academy stunned the world by awarding the honour to American rock legend and counter-culture icon Bob Dylan.
The Nobel comes with a prize sum of nine million kronor ($1.1 million, 945,000 euros).
Ishiguro will receive his prize at a formal ceremony in Stockholm on December 10.
