Japan claims Kazuo Ishiguro as a long-lost son — after figuring out who he is
Tokyo — Minutes after Japanese-born Briton Kazuo Ishiguro was announced as the winner of this year’s Nobel Prize for Literature, Japanese took to Twitter to ask: "Who (the heck) is Kazuo Ishiguro?" For those who had never heard of the author of "The Remains of the Day" and other award-winning novels, the name that flashed across smartphones and TV screens was puzzling — it was undoubtedly Japanese-sounding, but written in the local script reserved for foreign names and words. Far from the super-star status that his erstwhile compatriot — and perpetual Nobel favourite — Haruki Murakami enjoys, Ishiguro is not a household name in Japan. But by Friday morning, the nation was celebrating the 62-year-old British transplant, who writes exclusively in English, as one of its own, seizing on his own declaration of an emotional and cultural connection to Japan, which he left at age five. "I’ve always said throughout my career that although I’ve grown up in this country (Britain) … that a larg...
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