Flabbergasted and flattered: Kazuo Ishiguro wins 2017 Nobel Prize for Literature
The award marks a return to a more mainstream interpretation of the category after the 2016 prize went to American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan
British author Kazuo Ishiguro won the Nobel Literature Prize on Thursday, joining the likes of Doris Lessing and Ernest Hemingway as recipient of the world’s most prestigious literary award.
The 62-year-old, “in novels of great emotional force, has uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world”, the Swedish Academy wrote in its citation.
Speaking to the BBC, Ishiguro said winning the award was a “magnificent honour” and “flabbergastingly flattering”.
“It’s a magnificent honour, mainly because it means that I’m in the footsteps of the greatest authors that have lived, so that’s a terrific commendation.
“The world is in a very uncertain moment and I would hope all the Nobel Prizes would be a force for something positive in the world as it is at the moment,” he said.
“I’ll be deeply moved if I could in some way be part of some sort of climate this year in contributing to some sort of positive atmosphere at a very uncertain time.”