Kazuo Ishiguro: Contemporary Critical Perspectives(Contemporary Critical Perspectives)

Kazuo Ishiguro is one of the finest and most accomplished contemporary writers of his generation. The short story author, television writer and novelist, included twice in Grantas list of Best Young British Writers, has over the past twenty-five years produced a body of work which is just as critically-acclaimed as it is popular with the general public. Like the writings of Ian McEwan, Kazuo Ishiguros work is concerned with creating discursive platforms for issues of class, ethics, ethnicity, nationhood, place, gender and the uses and problems surrounding artistic representation. As a Japanese immigrant who came to Great Britain in 1960, Ishiguro has used his unique position and fine intellectual abilities to contemplate what it means to be British in the contemporary era. This guide traces the main themes throughout Ishiguros writing whilst it also pays attention to his short stories and writing for television. It includes a new interview with the author, a preface by Haruki Murakami and discussion of James Ivorys adaptation of The Remains of the Day.

Table of Contents:
Preface - Haruki Murakami; General Introduction; Biography / Chronology; 1: Reading Never Let Me Go, John Mullan (University College London); 2: 'I don't want to think about things too much': Ishiguro's Short Fiction in Context, Brian W. Shaffer (Rhodes College); 3. Ishiguro's Writing for the Screen, Paul-Daniel Veyret (University of Bordeaux); 4. The Unconsoled as Minor Literature, Tim Jarvis; 5. Myth, Mortality and Transcendence in Never Let Me Go and Remains of the Day, J'annine Jobling (Liverpool Hope University); 6. The construction of gender identity in A Pale View of Hills, An Artist of the Floating World and The Remains of the Day, Justine Baillie (University of Greenwich); 7. Rereading Never Let Me Go, Mark Currie (University of East Anglia); 8. Of Vision and Blindness: Kazuo's thinking about the First and Second World War, Sean Matthews; 9.Cultural Amnesia in The Unconsoled and Never Let Me Go, Julika Griem (Technische Universitat Darmstadt); 10. Interview with Kazuo Ishiguro by Sean Matthews (University of Nottingham); Further Reading; Index.

About the Author :
Sean Matthews is Lecturer in Modern and Contemporary Literature and Director of the D. H. Lawrence Research Centre, at the University of Nottingham, UK. Sebastian Groes is Lecturer in English at Liverpool Hope University, UK.

Review :
"Kazuo Ishiguro is a magnificently diverse and elusive writer and this volume's rich multiplicity of perspectives suits him perfectly. It is required reading for those who are studying or simply enchanted by his fiction - criticism at its most absorbing and spirited." - Professor Richard Bradford, Professor of Literary History & Theory at the University of Ulster, UK "This illuminating collection recontextualizes all of Kazuo Ishiguro's novels and his often-neglected short stories; it offers new and exciting critical insights into his literary craft as well as examines his work in cinema and visual arts. Editors Groes and Matthews have generated a timely and engrossing text on this important contemporary British author, one that is sure to be referenced often by readers and critics of Ishiguro's works."- Cynthia Wong, Associate Professor, Department of English, University of Colorado Denver, USA This expertly edited volume on Ishiguro's work, which concludes with an interview with the author, should prove invaluable to scholars and students working on his fiction- whether on single novels or stories, or his work as a whole. ... the chapters in this book are a valuable contribution to the increasing body of work on Ishiguro.