Kazuo Ishiguro: Lyrical Tales of Emotion

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Academy of Achievement

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4.6 • 943 Ratings

🗓️ 7 May 2018

⏱️ 59 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This Nobel Prize-winning writer — the author of “Remains of the Day” and “Never Let Me Go” — started out as a singer songwriter. He talks here about falling in love with language at 13, while listening to Bob Dylan, and describes how the spare language of songwriting affected his approach to writing novels. Ishiguro also discusses other influences, including years spent working in a homeless shelter. And he beautifully expresses the intimate human connection between writer and reader. This year, when the Nobel prize in literature has been derailed by scandal, we invite you to revel in the thoughtful, musical, imaginative world of the 2017 winner! (c ) American Academy of Achievement 2018

Transcript

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0:00.0	For Kazu Ishaguro, who won the 2017 Nobel Prize in Literature,
0:06.0	writing is a small private affair.
0:09.0	One person writes in a quiet room, trying to connect with another person who reads in another quiet
0:16.6	room.
0:17.6	Stories can entertain, sometimes teach, or argue a point. But for me the essential thing is that they communicate feelings,
0:27.0	that they appeal to what we share as human beings across our borders and divides. There are large glamorous industries around
0:36.4	stories, the book industry, the movie industry, the television industry, the
0:40.6	theater industry. But in the end, stories about one person saying to another,
0:47.0	this is the way it feels to me. Can you understand what I'm saying? Does it also feel that way to you?
0:55.0	That's what my work is about.
0:58.0	That's what I keep trying to do.
1:00.0	The Nobel Prize in literature is given for a writer's entire body of work.
1:05.2	Kazuo Ishigoros includes the remains of the day, never let me go, and the buried giant.
1:12.4	As a writer he has said, he's more let me go and the buried giant.
1:13.0	As a writer he has said, he's more interested in what people tell themselves
1:18.3	happened rather than what actually happened.
1:21.9	Here's what the Nobel Committee had to say.
1:24.0	The Nobel Prize in Literature 2017 is awarded to the English writer Kas Kasuvo Ishiguro, who in novels of great emotional force,
1:39.2	has uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world.
1:48.6	Kazuo Ishigora, one of the world's Greatest and Most Thoughtful Writers
1:53.7	is the featured guest on today's episode of What It Takes,
1:57.5	a podcast about passion, vision, and perseverance
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