Kazuo Ishiguro

"From her place in the store that sells artificial friends, Klara--an artificial friend with outstanding observational qualities--watches carefully the behavior of those who come in to browse, and of those who pass in the street outside. She remains hopeful a customer will soon choose her, but when the possibility emerges that her circumstances may change forever, Klara is warned not to invest too much in the promises of humans. In this luminous tale,...

Steven spielt Saxophon in einer Jazzband, die von Bar zu Bar tingelt und nicht weiter auffällt. Er weiß, dass er richtig gut ist, aber er sieht aus wie ein Loser. Lindy ist der Star der Boulevardpresse, schon etwas älter, Schönheitsoperationen halten sie frisch. Gerade geschieden von Tony Gardner, einem einst berühmten, jetzt verblassten Jazzsänger, ist sie wieder reif für's Messer. Nachts, auf den verschwiegenen Fluren eines Nobelhotels in...

The novel's narrator, Stevens, is a perfect English butler who tries to give his narrow existence form and meaning through the self-effacing, almost mystical practice of his profession. In a career that spans the second World War, Stevens is oblivious of the real life that goes on around him -- oblivious, for instance, of the fact that his aristocrat employer is a Nazi sympathizer. Still, there are even larger matters at stake in this heartbreaking,...

After the suicide of her daughter, Etsuko, a Japanese woman now living in England, thinks back to a particular summer in Nagasaki.

An ordinary man, reduced by years of oppressive office routine to a shadow existence, makes a supreme effort to turn his dull life into something wonderful after receiving a terminal diagnosis.