The 2017 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to writer Kazuo Ishiguro, who was born in Japan but has lived in Britain since the 1960s. The academy said Ishiguro “has uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world” through his “novels of great emotional force”.

Ishiguro has written eight books, as well as scripts for film and television. The themes Ishiguro is most associated with are memory, time and self-delusion, the Nobel committee said.

His most renowned novel, The Remains of the Day (1989), was made into a film starring Anthony Hopkins as butler Stevens and Emma Thompson as Miss Kenton. The film, made in 1993, was nominated for eight Academy Awards. In his 2005 dystopian work Never Let Me Go, Ishiguro introduced a cold undercurrent of science fiction into his work. Ishiguro’s writings are marked by a carefully restrained mode of expression, independent of whatever events are taking place, the committee said.

About the winner

Ishiguro was born on November 8, 1954 in Nagasaki, Japan. The family moved to the United Kingdom when he was five years old. He returned to visit his country of birth only as an adult. In the late 1970s, Ishiguro graduated in English and Philosophy at the University of Kent, and then went on to study Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia.

Last year’s winner

In 2016, the Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded to musician and writer Bob Dylan “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition”. The Academy was both hailed, for breaking from convention by selecting a songwriter, and chastised for diluting the prestige of the award.