Ishiguro, who received four Man Booker Prize nominations, and won the 1989 award for his novel The Remains of the Day, has published his first novel in ten years.
The Buried Giant is set in southern England between the fall of the Roman Empire and the driving out of the Celtic tribes by the Anglo-Saxons. And in keeping with the era, Ishiguro had initially used the vernacular of that time.
Speaking to Channel 4 News, Ishiguro says: “According to her [my wife] she said, I made it way, way too over rich. She said it sounded like a cross between Ivanhoe and the Archers.”
‘Upstart writer’
Deciding to start agin, Ishiguro found that by using simpler language, it became “odd and stilted” but it worked. “I subtracted rather than added to the normal English we can speak,” he adds.
Speaking about his relationship with his wife, Ishiguro jokes: “She knew me before I became a writer, so in her mind I’m still this kind of upstart who thinks he can write.
“I think it’s very important for people like me to have a consistent editing voice and someone who doesn’t take me too seriously.”