Japanese - Author | November 8, 1954 -
Many of our deepest motives come, not from an adult logic of how things work in the world, but out of something that is frozen from childhood.
Kazuo Ishiguro
WorkChildhoodWorldLogicDeepest
I'm interested in memory because it's a filter through which we see our lives, and because it's foggy and obscure, the opportunities for self-deception are there. In the end, as a writer, I'm more interested in what people tell themselves happened rather than what actually happened.
MemoryPeopleOpportunitiesEndSee
I want my words to survive translation. I know when I write a book now I will have to go and spend three days being intensely interrogated by journalists in Denmark or wherever. That fact, I believe, informs the way I write - with those Danish journalists leaning over my shoulder.
WordsSurviveBookBelieveGoKnow
Screenplays I didn't really care about, journalism, travel books, getting my writer friends to write about their dreams or something. I just determined to write the books I had to write.
DreamsTravelCareFriendsWrite
Memory is quite central for me. Part of it is that I like the actual texture of writing through memory. I like the atmospheres that result if episodes are narrated through the haze of memory.
MemoryMeWritingResultTexture
Our family arrived in England in 1960. At that time I thought the war was ancient history. But if I think of 15 years ago from now, that's 1990, and that seems like yesterday to me.
FamilyHistoryTimeWarMeThink
I couldn't speak Japanese very well, passport regulations were changing, I felt British, and my future was in Britain. And it would also make me eligible for literary awards. But I still think I'm regarded as one of their own in Japan.
FutureMeSpeakThinkAwardsOwn
My wife is the most savage critic. She doesn't feel intimidated by my reputation. As far as she's concerned, she's just criticising a boyfriend who'd recently had a go at fiction. She can tell me to abandon whole novels.
WifeMeReputationFeelGoShe
Why would somebody just read a novel when they can see it on TV or in the cinema? I really have to think of the things fiction can do that film can't and play to the strengths of the novel. With a novel, you can get right inside somebody's head.
ThinkYouCinemaPlayWhySee
I wouldn't want to try to adapt something of my own. It would be like going back to school and doing all my exams again.
SchoolDoingBackAdaptWantMy Own
As a writer, I'm more interested in what people tell themselves happened rather than what actually happened.
PeopleMoreTellInterestedHappened
The book was at a reasonably high position on the New York Times... before I was in the country. I thought it would be an interesting experiment to see if my presence here would push it up or down.
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