'Remains of the Day' author Ishiguro wins Nobel prize for literature

Nice to see Japanese people feel so happy that a Brit won the prize.

Beautifully nuanced prose that delves deep and through the human psyche. Congratulations to another British writer. The film of Remains of the Day is stunning too.

A Pale View of the Hills is one of the few books I've read twice. Even a philistine like myself can enjoy it.

Well done Ishiguro-san, Nagasaki must be so proud of you!

Good to see that Nobel committee members thought about the masses though. British authors are usually much more accessible to the general public than others.

( I think I might need a ;) with this one)

My favourite novel and screen play was 'Never Let Me Go', the dystopian story of children bred as donors, which must have had an influence on 'Island.' His writing reminds me of John Fowles and John Le Carre, evocative prose with great choices of words.

It was well-deserved criticism to give the literature prize to dylan. I'm sorry but songs ain't literature, no matter how hard you stretch the definition. But congrats to ishiguro. Damn fine piece of literature.

nakanoguy01: "I'm sorry but songs ain't literature, no matter how hard you stretch the definition."

It is when a song becomes a story, but I think that will be lost on someone who uses "ain't".

"But congrats to ishiguro. Damn fine piece of literature."

Well, you said music can't be literature, but now people can?

In any case, he's a great writer. I've read both Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go and loved them both. Very sad, and touching. I'm not sure why Japanese are so proud, though -- the guy is British, and has been since he was six. In fact, most Japanese I know whom I've mentioned him to (and I didn't know he was British at first when I started reading him; I thought it was a translation) don't even know who he is, and those who did twisted their noses and said he's not Japanese. Reminds me of the way they celebrate American figure skaters of Japanese descent when they do well.

Why is there the annual expectation in Japan that Murakami will win? He's a one trick pony. He's no Ishiguro

Only one who has no idea about Dylan's poetry would complain about him getting the Nobel. He completely full-fills the criteria:" the person who, in the literary field, had produced "the most outstanding work in an ideal direction"."

I don't understand why the Japanese are so glad about this, the author does not identify himself as Japanese, but as Brit (besides being, you know a Brit with a J-Name)... Ishiguro can't read and write the language, and wrote about japan almost in a mythical way, when he wasn't criticizing the Japanese ways of forgetting the war...

Of course the Japanese are happy and proud; local lad done good.

The colour of his passport doesn’t prevent those of a different nationality from appreciating his success. Especially if he has a genuine, tangible connection with them.

When he visits Japan, the newspapers give his name as Kazuo Ishiguro in Katakana, not in Kanji. Very deep, perceptive and sensitive writing. He moves in seams that flow between both Japanese and Western psyche. Japan coud easily have claimed and embraced him...

Fantastic news, though. My heart jumped when I saw the headlines. Well done indeed!

On another note, here's hoping Arundhati Roy and Rohinton Mistry are properly recognized one day.

I wish some SF authors could be considered for the prize, as some both intertwine real imagination with normal literature.. admittedly it's not everyone's cup of tea.

@mmwk

Doris Lessing’s won.

Science Fiction authors and Nobel Prize? Here's a short list:

Harry Martinson's Aniara

Nadine Gordimer's July's People

José Saramago’s Blindness

... and I'm sure there are others who at least once wrote SF.

Delighted!

I don't understand why the Japanese are so glad about this, the author does not identify himself as Japanese, but as Brit (besides being, you know a Brit with a J-Name)... 

Because he was raised in a Japanese speaking household maybe ?

surprised to see no mention of his most recent best selling novel, The Buried Giant, which ambitiously uses Arthurs knights to examine the criminality of war, refugees, and ethnic conflict. Also, he has not been 'British since he was six'--if you read about his background you will find out he got his citizenship in his early 20s, close to the time his debut novel came out. One could argue that spending all your formative years in a place where you are not (yet) a citizen can make for a unique vision of your adopted home. I hope he goes with the ripe topic of modern refugees in Europe in more novels, elaborating on that theme from Buried Giant.

smithinjapanOct. 5  10:33 pm JST

nakanoguy01: "I'm sorry but songs ain't literature, no matter how hard you stretch the definition."

It is when a song becomes a story, but I think that will be lost on someone who uses "ain't".les

puh-lease. do you actually know what people criticized him for? it was for plagiarism. has any other nobel laureate been criticized for that? no!

and the use of "ain't" would be most fitting for dylan who filled his songs with colloquialisms. but i guess that would be beyond your comprehension.

TorafusuTorasan, I was disappointed by The Buried Giant. It did have its moments, and he had researched that dark crossover period of history after the Romans left but when the Brits, Angles and Saxons were still enemies in the land. Too allegorical, though, it left me a little confused. Not his best, I felt.

I shared that reaction, considering Arthur and Gawain have too much fictional baggage themselves, and then to try to conjure up Bush/Blair or whomever was intended as our modern warrior counterparts, was a pretty big leap. As comedy writers are finding with their golden goose Trump, political parody has more bite, but that is not workable within Ishiguro's researched, reverent style.

Nobel Prizes should be limited to science only of objective values.

nandakandamandaOct. 5  11:01 pm JST He moves in seams that flow between both Japanese and Western psyche. Japan coud easily have claimed and embraced him...

How silly. He isn't Japanese in the least. Left the country 58 years ago, doesn't speak the language and hadn't been back to Japan for some 30 years until he visited in 1990. His two novels set in Japan suffer for all this.

It's funny I see him as British

Countries don’t win Nobel prizes anyway. Individuals do.

Who cares if he is Japanese or British.

He won a Nobel price for his work. Did you contribute to it? No. So...

Congratulations to him!

Jeff, you call my understanding silly, so unless you like my restatement below, we will have to agree to disagree.

The Remains of the Day I read while living and working in Japan married to a Japanese wife, and I was constantly struck by those deeper values he was touching upon and savouring, values that Japanese and Britain people both share, or used to share.

Congrats! Am interested to read some of his works

Luddite: " He's a one trick pony."

You're entitled, of course, to your opinion on Murakami, but saying he's a "one-trick pony" is like saying Monet only had one decent and well known painting. It's ridiculous. Every single one of his books is a best-seller, both at home and abroad, with his books being translated into pretty much any language under the sun. Even his original novellas have been reprinted because they are in high demand, which first prints being very expensive and hard to find. One-trick pony? Most certainly not. Worthy of a Nobel? That's up to the people who give it out, or up to personal opinion.

sf2k: "It's funny I see him as British"

Why? He's been British for almost his entire life. Funnier to imagine him as Japanese, which is why all the SUDDEN, and I mean sudden for more than 99% of the people interested in him, interest and back-patting in Nagasaki and across Japan. Band wagon's in full force today!

@smithinjapan Murakami's books are all the same - cats, young women's ears and a mystical element.

This is funny.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-41521260

It's good to be corrected, even with my own wide spread readings which perhaps may be more biased towards the male dominated pure Sci-Fi authors than Sci-fantansy, etc.

Jack Vance, for example, although he wrote both Science fiction and Fantasy, has absolutely no chance, compared with these esoteric writers :) .

Murakami, let me tell you, he is almost impossible to translate from Japanese to English. So I would say, 50% of what he writes is lost in translation, really. I read him once in English, then in Japanese, and there are a lot of subtleties of the J language that are completely missing in translations...