2017 Nobel Prize in Literature

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Kazuo Ishiguro

The 2017 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded Kazuo Ishiguro "who, in novels of great emotional force, has uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world."[1]

The prize was announced by the Swedish Academy on 5 October 2017.[2]

Laureate[]

Main article: Kazuo Ishiguro

Reactions[]

The choice of Kazuo Ishiguro as the Nobel Prize Laureate was generally well received. Salman Rushdie said “Many congratulations to my old friend Ish, whose work I’ve loved and admired ever since I first read A Pale View of Hills". Former UK Poet Laureate Andrew Motion said "by resting his stories on founding principles which combine a very fastidious kind of reserve with equally vivid indications of emotional intensity. It’s a remarkable and fascinating combination, and wonderful to see it recognised by the Nobel prize-givers.”[3] Kazuo Ishiguro himself said : "It's a magnificent honour, mainly because it means that I'm in the footsteps of the greatest authors that have lived, so that's a terrific commendation."[4]

Award ceremony speech[]

In her award ceremony speech on 10 December 2017 Sara Danius, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, said of Ishiguro: "An Ishiguro story is like a mix of Jane Austen and Franz Kafka. This may sound odd. Strictly speaking, it should be impossible. But Ishiguro shows that it works. It works well indeed. Herein lies much of his greatness. On the one hand, there is depiction of the ordinary, the enforced protocols of social life, the irrevocable ironies of human existence. On the other hand, an awareness of the absurdly comical, like Kafka’s Gregor Samsa waking up after a restless night only to realise that he has been transformed into an insect.", "His writing comes out of the realistic nineteenth-century tradition, with innovators such as Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Charlotte Brontë and George Eliot. This was when the novel opened its window onto the quotidian world. Ishiguro too is an innovator, always taking risks. With every new book he investigates a new genre-mix, with elements of the detective story, science fiction, myth … The window of the novel has always been wide. Ishiguro has widened it even more."[5]

Nobel lecture[]

Kazuo Ishiguro's Nobel lecture My Twentieth Century Evening – and Other Small Breakthroughs was delivered at the Swedish Academy on 7 December 2017.[6]

References[]

  1. ^ "Nobel Prize in Literature 2027". nobelprize.org.
  2. ^ "Price announcement". nobelprize.org.
  3. ^ "Nobel prize in literature 2017: Kazuo Ishiguro wins – as it happened". The Guardian. 5 October 2017.
  4. ^ "Kazuo Ishiguro: Nobel Literature Prize is 'a magnificent honour'". BBC News. 5 October 2017.
  5. ^ "Award Ceremony speech". nobelprize.org.
  6. ^ "Kazuo Ishiguro Nobel lecture". nobelprize.org.

External links[]

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