Campden writer Kazuo Ishiguro wins Nobel Prize

Local writer Kazuo Ishiguro has won the Nobel Prize for Literature. He is the first Briton to do so for ten years.

The novelist, who has homes in Chipping Campden and London, was praised by the Swedish Academy as a writer "who, in novels of great emotional force, has uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world".

He has written eight books. The most recent is 2015’s The Buried Giant. His most successful is The Remains of the Day, which was made into a film in 1993 and starred Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson. Never Let Me Go, his sixth novel, is on the current GCSE syllabus.

Previous accolades he has picked up include the Man Booker Prize for The Remains of the Day. In 2008, The Times ranked Ishiguro 32nd on their list of 'The 50 greatest British writers since 1945'. He was made an OBE in 1995.

Ishiguro told the BBC that receiving the award was "flabbergastingly flattering" .

He said: "It's a magnificent honour, mainly because it means that I'm in the footsteps of the greatest authors that have lived, so that's a terrific commendation."

He said he hoped the Nobel Prize would be a force for good. "The world is in a very uncertain moment and I would hope all the Nobel Prizes would be a force for something positive in the world as it is at the moment," he said.

"I'll be deeply moved if I could in some way be part of some sort of climate this year in contributing to some sort of positive atmosphere at a very uncertain time."

As well as the glory Ishiguro will also pick up a prize of nine million kronor (£844,000).

The last British writer to pick up the Nobel Prize for Literature was Doris Lessing in 2007. Singer Bob Dylan won the prize last year amid some controversy – as he is a lyricist rather than a writer.

For more on this story see next week’s Herald.