Kazuo Ishiguro was born in Nagasaki, Japan, in 1954. In 1960, his
parents moved to Britain, as his father took up a job as a researcher
at the National Institute of Oceanography. Like many immigrants, they
had no intention of staying forever, and so brought Kazuo up in a
manner that would prepare him for life in Japan. However, Kazuo
received his schooling in Britain, attending a grammar school for boys
in Surrey. A sense of duality can be perceived from the characters in
Kazuo Ishiguro’s novels, a sense of “what might have been” if the other
path had been taken, which is perhaps a reflection of his own
upbringing. He could have ended up as a completely different person
than the one he is today. Some of Kazuo’s characters were separated
from their parents as children, but it is debatable how much of this is
autobiographical.
Each of his understated, finely wrought novels has been published to
international acclaim. He won the Booker Prize for The Remains of the
Day. His work has been translated into twenty-eight languages. In 1995
he received an Order of the British Empire for service to literature,
and in 1998 was named a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by
the French government. He lives in London with his wife and
daughter.
Excerpted from a biography on Amazon.com
