Eng426 20th century english literature

1.0 INTRODUCTION

Kazuo Ishiguro is one of the postmodernist writers who are preoccupied with how language mediates reality. His novel The Remains of the Day is about Butler Steven’s life and how he narrates his entire life as a butler and what he thinks of the remains of his life. In this unit, you will be introduced to Kazuo Ishiguro and his novel The Remains of the Day especially how much of postmodernism we can find in the novel.

0. OBJECTIVES

At the end of this Unit you should be able to:

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  summarise Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day;
  
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  discuss the postmodernist themes and techniques in the text; and
  
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  relate these themes and techniques to what obtains in modernist texts.
  

0. MAIN CONTENT

1. 
   Kazuo Ishiguro
   

Kazuo Ishiguro was born in Nagasaki, Japan, on November 8, 1954, to Shizuo (an oceanographer) and Shizuko (a homemaker). When he was six, his family moved to England where his father was commissioned by the British government to work on a project. Although the family expected to stay only a few years, his father’s work kept them there much longer until England had truly become their home. His novels include: A Pale View of Hills, An Artist of the Floating World, The Remains of the Day, Never Let Me Go, and Nocturnes. All of his novels have earned critical acclaim. Ishiguro’s novels
deal with self-deception, regret, and personal reflection. In 1995, Ishiguro was appointed as a member of the Order of the British Empire for his contributions to literature especially contemporary English fiction.

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