An early-career interview with Kazuo Ishiguro at the Institute of Contemporary Arts to celebrate the publication of his second novel, An Artist of the Floating World.

This 1986 interview came at a critical point in Kazuo Ishiguro's career. The British-Japanese writer had already published two novels, A Pale View of Hills and An Artist of the Floating World, and was writing his first book set in England, which he modestly alludes to during the discussion. That novel, The Remains of the Day, catapulted Ishiguro to international fame. It would sell over a million copies and win the Man Booker Prize in 1989, while the Merchant Ivory film adaptation scooped eight Academy Award nominations in 1993.

This conversation, hosted by fellow writer and University of East Anglia alumnus Clive Sinclair, covers topics such as Ishiguro's youth growing up in Nagasaki under the shadow of the atomic bomb, his move to Britain as a five year-old, his early aspirations to become a rock musician, his eventual transition to writing fiction and his unique approach to plot and character. Ishiguro has become one of the UK's most celebrated writers. A dedicated cinephile, many of his stories have been adapted into acclaimed films by himself and others.

The writer Kazuo Ishiguro talks to the young British novelist Clive Sinclair
about his childhood, Japanese and British culture, his MA on Creative Writing
at East Anglia University, the Japanese theme in his writing, and his attitude
to language. Themes and topics discussed include: growing up in the shadow of
the atom bomb; the need for critical encouragement; the moral crisis of post-
war Japan; the role of research; codes which govern modern Japanese fiction;
using English to write about Japanese worlds; and, creating authentic
fictional worlds.