Tokyo: Minutes after Japanese-born Briton Kazuo Ishiguro was announced as this year’s winner of this year’s Nobel Prize in Literature, Japanese took to Twitter to ask, “Who (the hell) is Kazuo Ishiguro?”
For those who have never heard of the author of The Remains of the Day and other award-winning novels, the name flashing across smartphones and TV screens was a mystery – it was undoubtedly Japanese-sounding, but written in the local script reserved for foreign names and words.
Far from the superstar status enjoyed by his former compatriot – and eternal Nobel Prize winner – Haruki Murakami, Ishiguro is not a household name in Japan.
But Friday morning, the nation celebrated the 62-year-old British transplant, who writes exclusively in English, as one of his own, using his own statement of an emotional and cultural connection to Japan, which he left at the age of five.
“I’ve always said throughout my career that although I grew up in this country (Britain) … that a big part of my way of looking at the world, my artistic approach, is Japanese, because I was raised by Japanese parents, who speak in Japanese,” Ishiguro said on Thursday.
Japanese newspapers made headlines for his Nobel Prize, describing him as a native of Nagasaki who had obtained British citizenship as an adult.
“On behalf of the government, I would like to express our delight that an ethnic Japanese … has received the Nobel Prize in Literature,” said the Japanese government spokesman.
The Sankei daily boasted, “(Ishiguro) follows Yasunari Kawabata and Kenzaburo Oe as the third Japanese-born writer” to win the award.
Similarly, the country celebrated with gusto co-winner of the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physics, American Shuji Nakamura, despite having renounced his Japanese nationality years ago. Japan does not recognize dual citizenship for adults.
Many Japanese are familiar with Ishiguro’s 2005 dystopian novel “Never Let Me Go” from its dramatization in a local TV series last year, although the fact that Ishiguro wrote the work was less well known. Over the past 16 years, Hayakawa Publishing, which owns the exclusive rights to translate Ishiguro’s works into Japanese, has sold less than a million of its eight titles.
The Japanese may still long for an elusive Nobel Prize for Murakami, but for now Ishiguro is their man of the hour.
“We have received orders for 200,000 copies since last night,” said Hiroyuki Chida of Hayakawa Publishing. “That is unthinkable at this time.”