The power of emotions: The Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to British writer Kazuo Ishiguro. Nobel Prize in Literature awarded to Kazuo Ishiguro

On Thursday, October 5, the name of the new Nobel Prize in Literature was announced in Stockholm. Received an award in this area for 2017. Let's tell you more about him and his work.

Ethnic Japanese

Kazuo Ishiguro was born on November 8, 1954 in Japan. His parents, Shizuo and Shizuko Ishiguro, lived in the city of Nagasaki, on which 9 years before the writer’s birth the Americans dropped an atomic bomb. The father of the family was engaged in oceanography, and the mother raised three children - Kazuo has two sisters. Even after moving to England, the Ishiguro family spoke Japanese at home. Having started his creative career, the writer retained his real name and did not take a pseudonym that was more understandable to the British audience, and therefore more commercially profitable. Although he later admitted in an interview that he was little familiar with the culture of his native country and was not integrated into it in any way.

Ishiguro's novels do not offer solutions or caresses, but challenge the reader to search for meaning beyond desolation. Social assistant with a passion for music and writing. I have a different experience, in different ways, my views are somewhat different, said Ishiguro in a discussion with the writer Graham Swift. When he was a student, he began playing guitar and piano, initially wanting to become a lead singer in a pop group. In the 1970s he studied English philology and philosophy at the University of Kent and the University of East Anglia.

Before devoting himself full-time to writing, he worked among others as a social worker supporting the homeless. And this year we have chosen one of the most outstanding modern novelists. The Nobel Committee in Stockholm announced Thursday that Japanese-born British writer Kazuo Ishiguro is the winner of this year's Nobel Prize for Literature.

British by passport

In 1960, the Ishiguro family moved to the UK - to the city of Guildford, located near London. The writer's father was offered a position here at the National Institute of Oceanography. Kazuo was old enough to go to school and his parents sent him to educational institution first degree at Stoughton, and then to the prestigious Surrey Grammar School, founded back in 1509. Here he mastered the English language perfectly. After finishing school, Ishiguro took a year off and traveled throughout the United States and Canada to improve his skills. Although the native language for young man remained Japanese, he did not return to Japan and in 1982 received a British passport.

Ishiguro received the award "for his high emotional novel, which reveals the abyss beyond our illusory sense of connection with the world," the Swedish Academy said. Kazuo Ishiguro is a novelist, screenwriter and novelist. He was born in Nagasaki, Japan.

He is a mixture of Jane Austen and Franz Kafka. If you mix it up a little, not too much, Ishiguro will definitely be a success, said Sara Danius, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy. To date, 109 Nobel Prizes for literature have been awarded, 14 of which have been won by women. Within four years, the Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded to ex-op.

Ishiguro and music

As a child, the future writer dreamed of a musical career. He performed in clubs and sent demo tapes to producers without much success. Over time, he had to give up this dream. However, later Ishiguro, already a famous writer, wrote several songs for jazz singer Stacey Kent. Compositions with his lyrics can be found on her albums Breakfast On the Morning Tram (2007) and The Changing Lights (2013). According to the author, the texts turned out to be “intimate, confidential, very personal,” and their true meaning can only be read between the lines.

Yaug for their contribution to the study of the “biological clock” mechanism. Thorne, for contributions to the study of gravitational waves. On Wednesday, the Nobel Committee announced the winners of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry: Jacques Doubochet, Joachim Frank and Richard Henderson created electron cryomicroscopy, a revolutionary method for observing molecules. The Nobel Peace Prize winner will be announced on Friday. Along with their colleagues around the world, Romanian publishers have only been waiting for this announcement, because if the publisher is lucky enough to have already obtained the copyright of the winner, then in the coming years it is guaranteed to overcome sales.

Ishiguro and literature

The future writer received a liberal arts education - a bachelor's degree in English literature and philosophy from the University of Kent (1978) and a master of arts degree from the University of East Anglia. The writer's first published works were three stories in the 1981 anthology Introduction 7: Stories by New Writers. And in next year His first novel “Where the Hills Are in the Haze” (1982) was published. The novel tells the story of Etsuko, a Japanese widow living in England. After her daughter's suicide, she is haunted by memories of the destruction and restoration of Nagasaki. In the writer's second book again we're talking about about a character of Japanese origin. The Artist of the Uncertain World (1986), on behalf of the artist Matsuji, burdened with a wartime past, explores Japanese attitudes towards World War II. The work became Ishiguro's first serious literary success, receiving book of the year status in the UK. The writer's third novel, The Remains of the Day (1989), tells the story of an elderly English butler. This is a monologue-memory against the backdrop of fading traditions, the approaching world war and the rise of fascism. Ishiguro created “The Inconsolable” (1995) in the surroundings of an unnamed country in Central Europe and in our time - an unusual technique for him; he more often reinterprets the past in his work. The action of the novel "When We Were Orphans" (2000) takes place in Shanghai in the first half of the 20th century. This is the story of a private detective's investigation into the mysterious disappearance of his parents 20 years ago. Never Let Me Go (2005) was included by Time magazine in its list of the 100 best English novels of the century. The novelist also wrote the novels “Nocturnes: 5 Stories of Music and the Fall of Night” (2009) and “The Buried Giant” (2015). Ishiguro's works have been translated into more than 40 languages, including his native Japanese.

I have the copyright of Bob Dylan. Tens of thousands of Romanians who did not know about this author, or knew and did not read, could enter bookstores and buy their books. Nemira has published the British author's eighth book. Polygrom representatives told the site that they are republishing Ishiguro's titles because they expect demand for the author to grow greatly.

He subsequently appears in a new edition of the Dictionary of the Romanian Academy, although he never wrote in Romanian. After Hertha Müller received the Nobel Prize, all her books were included within a year in the top 10 best selling authors in bookstores in Romania.

The head of the Nobel Prize literary jury, writer and critic Sarah Danius, described the work of Kazuo Ishiguro as. He has also been compared to Salman Rushdie and Henry James. Critics classify Ishiguro's work as drama, historical literature, genre literature, and even see in it elements of science fiction and futurism.

Any Scotland, although some of the translations were very hasty, they were very fast, says Lucian Prikop. The Nobel Prize can increase the print ten times in the case of poets in 2-3 years and several dozen times when we talk about writers. Once the prize is awarded, the writer becomes an institution and dominates the market because the Nobel in Literature has no marketing competitor among literary prizes.

One million euros received by an author who has won a Nobel Prize is perhaps the lowest financial benefit, since the income portion will be much higher. This is not just about copyrights, but about dozens of invitations such a writer receives to hold conferences around the world, says the literary critic. He tells us that he witnessed one such accident, Günter Grass, who had already accepted the prize and was invited to lecture at the cathedral in Paris, or rather read in German in his work.

Ishiguro and cinema

The writer's most successful novel, The Remains of the Day, was filmed in 1993. The film was directed by James Ivory, and the main roles were played by Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson. The film was nominated for eight Oscars, including Best Adapted Screenplay, but lost to Schindler's List. On imdb.com the film has a fairly high rating of 7.9. A film was also made based on Ishiguro's novel Never Let Me Go (2010), starring Kerry Mulligan and Andrew Garfield (imdb.com rating - 7.2). The writer also wrote original scripts for the musical “The Saddest Music in the World” (2003, directed by Guy Maddin) and the military-historical drama “The White Countess” (2005, directed by James Ivory).

The entrance fee was 250 euros and places had been filled up months in advance. “Next year a Nobel peasant could easily earn millions of euros,” Prikop said. He visited his homeland after he became an adult. Kazuo Ishiguro made his debut in literature with the novel A Pale Eye on the Hills. Both his debut novel and his follow-up, The Artist of the Floating World, are set in Nagasaki, several years after World War II. The themes addressed by the author in these volumes are memory, time, and self-dissolution.

They are especially famous in his most famous novel, The Remains of the Day, which was adapted into a film that received eight Oscar nominations and starred actors Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson. Kazuo Ishiguro's literary style is marked by a remarkable way of expression, regardless of events. And this novel was shown, and the main roles in the film of the same name were interpreted by Keira Knightley, Carey Mulligan and Andrew Garfield. An illustrative example of this is the collection of short stories Nocturnes: Five Tales of Music and Twilight, in which music plays a central role in describing the relationships between the characters.

Awards

Before the Nobel Prize, Kazuo Ishiguro managed to receive more than one award - literary and not only. In particular, the Booker Prize for the novel "The Remains of the Day". Moreover, the members of the Booker Committee voted for his work unanimously - a rather rare case for this prize. Three more of his novels were nominated for it - “The Artist of the Unsteady World”, “When We Were Orphans” and “Never Let Me Go”. "The Artist" was also awarded the Whitbread Award. In addition, since 1989 the writer has been a member of the British Royal Society of Literature, since 1995 he has been an officer of the Order of the British Empire and since 1998 he has been a Knight of the French Order of Arts and Letters. Ishiguro is also included in the 2008 list of the 50 greatest British authors of the post-war period newspaper The Times.

In their latest novel, The Buried Giant, two elderly men travel and cross an archaic English landscape, hoping to meet the son they have not seen for many years. The novel explores emotionally how memory relates to oblivion, history to the present, and fantasy to reality.

In addition to his eight published novels, Kazuo Ishiguro has also written scripts for several film and television productions. In Romania, his novels were translated by Polyrom. Over the years, the Japanese-born British writer has been awarded numerous prestigious awards. His debut novel, translated into Romanian as The Memory of Pale Mountain, won the Winifred Holtby Award, a trophy awarded by the Royal Society of Literature, and was later translated into thirteen languages.

The 2017 Nobel laureate in literature was the British writer and screenwriter of Japanese origin, Kazuo Ishiguro.

Ishiguro's literary career began in 1981. Over the course of 36 years, he wrote about ten prose works, which were translated into more than 30 languages ​​of the world.

Kazuo Ishiguro is also the scriptwriter. In addition, some films were made based on the writer’s finished works. Ishiguro's Man Booker Prize-winning novel The Remains of the Day was filmed in 1993. Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson played in the film.

The Nobel Prize for Literature is the fourth announced in a series of prizes issued each year. The Nobel Peace Prize will be awarded on Friday, October 6. The Nobel Foundation announced last week that the financial reward this year's winners will receive will be one million Swedish kronor higher than last year's.

Sure, the name of a recent Nobel Prize winner sounds like a Japanese name, but on the day the big prize was announced, the laureate's name appeared on the screens of smartphones and Japanese televisions in the local language for names and foreign words, and it puzzled deeply Japanese people unfamiliar with Ishiguro's novels. In addition, before the winner was announced, the bookmakers presented him as a potential winner of the Japanese writer Haruki Murakami, an author who in the Country rising sun almost superstars.

In 2005, Ishiguro’s book “Never Let Me Go” was published - the best novel of the year according to Time magazine. The events described in it also became the basis of the film: the film of the same name was directed by Mark Romanek.

All works of Kazuo Ishiguro are united by subtle psychologism. The heroes of his novels, in order to understand and accept themselves, try to comprehend the past - their own, their family or their people. It is noteworthy that Ishiguro does not set out to give the reader a comprehensive explanation of the characters’ motives—he has to “figure them out” on his own.

This year, the expectations of Romanian readers went to the famous Haruki Murakami, but this moment Ishiguro is the “man of the day.” And, in a sense, his drawing is a pleasant surprise, a kind of gift to Caesar that Caesar has. The Remains of the Day is an exceptional film after the cult book signed by Kazuo Ishiguro.

In Romania, Kazuo Ishiguro is one of the foreign writers whose books have often been included in the best-selling list of Polymor, the publishing house that published his books in translation. By far his most famous novel, to Romanian readers and everywhere else, is The Remains of the Day.

“What does international romance mean? I believe this is such a fairly simple (novel. — RT), which displays a vision of life that is important to people of various origins all over the world,” noted Ishiguro.

Entertaining arithmetic

The Nobel Prize for Literature has been awarded annually since 1901. The only exception was seven years in the first half of the 20th century (including the years when world wars were fought). 109 prizes were awarded to 113 laureates - in four cases, two people received awards at once.

The novel confirms the ability to acclimatize Asian sensitivity and exoticism on European soil. The central character, Stevens, an old-fashioned butler, silently in love with the beautiful and smart life at Lord Darlington's castle, identifies with his function that he escapes the dramatic events of the Second World War, who attends service at his master's table. Nothing stops him from fulfilling his duties as the "ultimate butler" - not even the loss of his only loved ones - and only towards the end of his life does he realize that the world has changed greatly and that he is just a "remnant of the past."

According to the will of Alfred Nobel, the prize goes to the author of “the most significant literary work of an idealistic orientation.” The truth is, what its founder meant by the word “idealistic” is still a matter of debate.

Most of the Nobel laureates - 28 people - wrote their works in English language, 14 - in French, 13 - in German, 11 - in Spanish. And only six authors are in Russian.

Don't leave me, new screening success. The book in which literary lovers in Romania can be easily found in any online store and in most bookstores in big cities. Her job is to help the "clone children" to believe that the establishment of Hailsham between the kinds of erotic scenes in films and plays, between the magazine collections and books, and the duck pond, they will look real and the only reason for their existence, the gift of donors organs: Your lives were planned by others.

You will become an adult and at some point, perhaps before you are forty, you will begin to donate your vital organs. This is why you were created. In their short life, which is valued by a limited number of "donations", they hope that, hopefully, on the day when they will have freedom behind barbed wire and when they are no longer simple, an exchange.

Women have won the Nobel Prize in Literature 14 times. The first winner of the award was Selma Lagerlöf, a native of Sweden, author of Nils's Wonderful Journey with wild geese" The last time, in 2015, the award was awarded to the Belarusian writer Svetlana Alexievich.

  • Selma Lagerlöf: the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature
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Age statistics are also interesting: the average age for receiving a literature prize is 65 years, and most laureates were born in June. The youngest recipient in the history of the award is Rudyard Kipling. At the time of the award he was 41 years old.

The book "When We Were Orphans", published in Romanian translation by Magda Teodorscu, listed as the first novels, signed by Kazuo Ishigero, published in Romanian. The book follows the fate of three orphans: Christopher Banks, Sarah Hemmings, with whom he falls in love, and Jennifer, a little girl whom he takes in. The two female figures have a trivial story in their backs, no matter how tragic it is to be an orphan. Instead, Christopher Banks talks about the mysterious disappearance of his parents in Shanghai during the First World War.

IN THE USSR

Citizens of the USSR have won the Nobel Prize in Literature three times. In 1933, it was awarded to Ivan Bunin “for the strict skill with which he develops the traditions of Russian classical prose.” True, the writer was already in exile at that time.

In 1958, a prize with the wording “for significant achievements in modern lyric poetry, as well as for continuing the traditions of the great Russian epic novel” was decided to be awarded to Boris Pasternak. His candidacy was proposed French writer Albert Camus. The Soviet authorities reacted to this news extremely negatively: on the day the prize was awarded, the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee adopted a resolution “On the slanderous novel of B. Pasternak,” which stated that the writer was being used for political purposes. The “slanderous novel” meant Doctor Zhivago.

Both parents are allegedly victims of drug traffickers. Finding and retrieving his parents is the case that should theoretically crown his detective career. A novel about masters and students, parents and children, principles and betrayal. And the novel “The Artist of a Frozen World” is included in the list of the first translations from the work of Kazuo Ishiguro into Romanian. Written in a clear style but full of subtlety, consisting of calm and gentle tones, "The Fleeting World of the Artist" is a novel about masters and apprentices, parents and children, principles and desertion.

Post-war Japan, in a fascinating novel about death, guilt and responsibility. His memories, however, focus on his friendships with a young woman, Sachiko, and her strange daughter, Mariko. The central story is a pretext for presenting post-war Japan, a country where young people reject traditional values, but new values ​​and codes of behavior have not yet been fully assimilated, and they are the cause of stifled confrontations. Ishiguro, with his finesse and subtlety, manages to offer this strange atmosphere of an untainted world with unpretentious tension and disappointments through a story of death, guilt and responsibility.

Real persecution began: Pasternak was expelled from the Union of Writers of the USSR and it was even proposed to deprive him of Soviet citizenship. Under public pressure, he was forced to refuse the Nobel Prize. Two years later, the writer died of lung cancer.

  • Writer Boris Pasternak
  • globallookpress.com

In 1965, Mikhail Sholokhov won the Nobel Prize in Literature “for the artistic strength and integrity of the epic about the Don Cossacks at a turning point for Russia.” In this case, the authorities did not interfere with receiving the award. After the list of nominees was made public in 2016 (the names of the nominees for the prize have been kept secret for 50 years), it became known that the prize could be divided between Sholokhov and Anna Akhmatova.

Five years later, in 1970, the Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to Alexander Solzhenitsyn. The wording of the committee was: “For the moral strength with which he followed the immutable traditions of Russian literature.” Solzhenitsyn believed that the award to him was politically motivated. The Soviet authorities thought the same thing - the writer was even offered to leave the country.

In 1987, being a US citizen, Joseph Brodsky received the prize. He lost his Soviet citizenship in 1972.

Nobel week

In 2017, Nobel Week—the week the prize winners are announced—began on October 2. On this day, the laureates of the prize in the field of physiology and medicine were announced. They were American scientists Jeffrey Hall, Michael Rozbash and Michael Young, who discovered the molecular mechanisms that are responsible for the circadian rhythm - the human biological clock.

The Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to the Americans Rainer Weiss, Kip Thorne and Barry Barish. Thanks to their efforts, it was possible to detect gravitational waves, the existence of which was spoken of by Albert Einstein.

Laureates in the field of chemistry were Jacques Dubochet, Joachim Frank and Richard Henderson for the development of cryoelectron microscopy and high-resolution imaging in the study of biomolecules.

On Friday, October 6, the name of the Nobel Peace Prize laureate will be announced. On Monday, October 9, the winner of the Alfred Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences awarded by the Bank of Sweden (unofficially known as the Nobel Prize in Economics) will be named.