Ishiguro talks about first novel in 6 years
“The paradox is that you can create quite a lot of emotion, when you have a voice that isn’t inclined to express emotion.”
Kazuo Ishiguro, the Nobel Prize-winning novelist whose works include “The Remains of the Day” and “Never Let Me Go,” could be talking about a number of his characters, but in this case he’s describing the main character in his new novel, “Klara and the Sun.” Klara, the book’s firstperson narrator, is not actually a person but an AF — an Artificial Friend, for sale in a shop window in a not-too-distant future society. She sits, hoping for sunlight and for a child to catch her eye and, maybe, take her home. This happens, eventually, and “Klara and the Sun” becomes a poignant, unexpected story about love.
Ishiguro’s first novel in six years, “Klara and the Sun” is one of the most anticipated books of the season, from an author who has spent four decades exploring language and emotion through his elegantly restrained fiction.
Born in Japan, he has lived in England since moving there with his family at the age of 5, and published his first novel, “A Pale View of Hills,” in 1982. Numerous awards and accolades have followed, including the Nobel Prize for literature in 2017 and a British knighthood (for “services to literature” in 2019; he’s now officially Sir Kazuo).
Companion piece
Speaking on the phone from his London home in a relaxed, chatty interview, Ishiguro acknowledged that “Klara and the Sun” is a companion piece, or “almost like a reply, emotionally,” to “Never Let Me Go,” which also takes place in a future world and whose characters have a similar disconnection with humanity. But it didn’t start out that way. “Klara’s genesis is more like a doll or a soft toy, in one of those stories for 5- or 6-yearolds,” he said, noting that he’d always loved how books for small children create a connection between text and illustrations.
“A lot of the atmosphere I put into the novel — obviously I’m writing entirely prose, but I wanted some of the atmosphere of those illustrations,” he said. “One of the things I find really poignant about those children’s books — you sense in them our need to keep children of that age sheltered, from the harsh realities of what’s in front of them. We are trying to say, both in the words and the pictures, that the world is a kind, smiling place, it’s nice and gentle. And yet, when you look at a lot of those drawings, you can see that we don’t want to deceive the children. There are these subtle hints about difficulties, the sadness they might encounter . ... A lot of that was at the start of ‘Klara.’”
Ishiguro has long been interested in characters who feel more than they can express:
Mr. Stevens, the stoic, loyal butler in “The Remains of the Day” showed us his heart, but never through his words. Klara, the author thought, would offer an interesting challenge: an artificial creature, but one who is bright and observant and fascinated by the world.
“One of the opportunities I realized that I had, having a central character like Karla, is that coexisting in the