Japanese roots of Nobel winner Kazuo Ishiguro celebrated
TOKYO — His kindergarten teacher recalls Kazuo Ishiguro as a quiet boy who liked to read books. The British writer left Japan at a young age, but his birthplace became part of his artistic approach, which was recognized this week with the Nobel Prize in literature.
“It’s like a dream come true,” his former teacher, 91-year-old Teruko Tanaka, told Kyodo News service at her home in Nagasaki. She saw Ishiguro when he visited the southern Japanese city after winning the 1989 Man Booker Prize for “The Remains of the Day.”
“It was a difficult book,” she said and laughed. “I had to read the same pages over and over.”
Ishiguro left Nagasaki when he was 5 years old and didn’t make a return visit to Japan for 30 years, but that hasn’t stopped some in the country of his birthplace from celebrating his roots. His family moved to England for his father’s work, and Ishiguro studied English and philosophy at the University of Kent.