Nobel winner credits Dylan
BRITAIN: Kazuo Ishiguro has become the first British winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature since 2007.
The 62-year-old author only found out that he had won literature’s greatest accolade when his agency called to say it had heard something rather extraordinary on the news. He initially dismissed it as ‘‘fake news’’, and it was some time before confirmation came from the Swedish Academy, which awards the prize.
In the meantime, he had to tell his wife. ‘‘She went to the hairdresser - this momentous moment and she was just about to have the tints done when I phoned.’’
Ishiguro’s is an uncontroversial win, unlike Bob Dylan’s last year, which baffled many. But he said Dylan had been a brilliant choice.
‘‘He was the single greatest hero for me when I was growing up. Without Dylan’s words and music, I probably wouldn’t have been a writer.’’
Born in Nagasaki, Japan, Ishiguro moved with his family to Guildford, Surrey when he was 5.
A graduate of the University of East Anglia’s creative writing course, he wrote The Remains of the Day in four weeks. It won the Man Booker Prize in 1989, and a 1993 film adaptation received eight Oscar nominations.
The last British winner was Doris Lessing. Others include Harold Pinter, V S Naipaul and William Golding.
- Telegraph Group