Ishiguro has worked in traditional realism and in a surreal mode in his 1995
The Unconsoled, but as D. Mesher noted in the
Dictionary of Literary Biography, his "diverse fictions are linked . . . by the author's consistent interest in narrative unreliability, a technique he has used with great effect in the development of his plots." Ishiguro's capture of the prestigious Booker Prize for his third novel,
The Remains of the Day, confirmed the critical acclaim his work has garnered, a position reaffirmed by a Booker nomination in 2000 for his fifth novel,
When We Were Orphans. A "Temporary" Englishman
Born in Japan in 1954, Ishiguro traveled with his parents to England when he was only five years old. His father, an oceanographer, was employed by the British government with a temporary one-year contract, and the family settled in Guilford, Surrey, expecting to return to Japan the following year. However, the father's contract was renewed, and then renewed again until this temporary move became permanent; Ishiguro's first trip back to his native Japan would not occur until 1989. Meanwhile, he attended grammar school in Surrey and then went on to study literature and philosophy at the University of Kent and creative writing at the University of East Anglia.
