"who, in novels of great emotional force, has uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world"
I wrote this about him in my prediction series a few years ago:
'For some reason Ishiguro reminds me of Oran Pamuk though I now how distinct they both are from each other. What I am reminded of is the attempts of the individual to reconcile him with the world around them. Like in ‘Snow’ ‘When We Were Orphans’ is about getting caught in political situations when the main characters have personal problems that they would much rather solve than the wider underlying conditions of society. It’s not that the characters do not care about the world in which they live but simply they are displaying the fundamental problem of being an individual who acquires personal burdens while expected to be part of something bigger and, almost therefore, more meaningful. It is a universal trickiness that people have to deal with but the writers’ style is marked into this worldwide condition and therefore making it their own while being applicable to the reader, whoever they might be.'
A belated congratulations to Ishiguro for the award.
