Kazuo Ishiguro: My Twentieth Century Evening – and Other Small Breakthroughs’

My Twentieth Century Evening – and Other Small Breakthroughs’ is an extract from Kazuo Ishiguro’s speech after he was awarded the 2017 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Kazuo Ishiguro is a Japanese born writer and novelist. Born in Nagasaki in 1955, Ishiguro moved to England when he was just six years old. Educated at a boys school in Surrey and the the University of East Anglia where he studied creative writing, Ishiguro started writing as a full time occupation in 1982.

Ishiguro won the 1989 Booker Prize for Fiction, for his novel The Remains of The Day. The story, set in post-war England, explores the reflections of an elderly realising too late in life that he has wasted most of his existence in servitude to a fascist, Nazi-sympathiser.

Ishiguro references The Remains of the Day in his speech, relaying a small part of his creative process and struggle to find the missing “something” that would make the narrative complete. Ishiguro’s literary epiphany came about whilst listening to a Tom Waites song whilst laying on the sofa of his London home. The point to Ishiguro’s story was that inspiration may arrive from the most unexpected of places if we listen and take notice. Further, it often arrives when we are at our most relaxed, not when we are pushing ourselves to find a particular answer.

Ishiguro’s point resonated with me. I have often struggled to find inspiration or a particular creative direction, especially when I keep believing that working harder or longer at finding a resolution will eventually pay off. Sometimes this approach will work, but most often it does not. I have learned more recently that when I am faced with a mental block the best thing I can do is to take my dog for a walk. The process of clearing my head and just enjoying being in the moment is often enough to clear my vision and give me clear direction.

Later, IshiGuro talks more about moments of inspiration, of turning points in an artist’s career, explaining that these moments often start subtly rather than moments of great realisation and if we do not recognise them and follow them they can easily be lost forever.

His final points in this extract talk of the essence of stories and how he thinks of their purpose. He declares “But in the end, stories are about one person saying to another: this is the way it feels to me. Can you understand what I am saying? Does it also feel this way to you?” (Ishiguro, 2017).

ISHIGURO, K., 2017. My Twentieth Century Evening – and Other Small Breakthroughs’  [Viewed 30/10/2024]. Available from: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2017/ishiguro/25124-kazuo-ishiguro-nobel- lecture-2017/ 

THE NOBEL PRIZE, 2017. The Nobel Prize Literature 2017 [Viewed 30/10/2024]. Available from: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2017/summary/

THE NOBEL PRIZE, 2017. Kazuo Ishiguro Facts [Viewed 30/10/2024]. Available from: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2017/ishiguro/facts/