It's the season finale, so obviously I insisted our last guest be a Nobel Prize winner and...HERE HE IS! Kazuo Ishiguro, arguably one of our greatest writers of contemporary fiction, and a very lovely man to boot. His most famous book, The Remains of the Day, was written when Ishiguro was only 35. It won the Booker Prize and was adapted into a major film starring Antony Hopkins and Emma Thompson. His other works, including Never Let Me Go and The Buried Giant, collectively earned him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2017. Now, at the age of 66, he's back with his latest novel, Klara and the Sun, which is told through the eyes of an AI robot designed to befriend children.
He joins me to talk about observation and outsiders, imposter syndrome and self-belief, his movie script failures and his failure to grasp the importance of science. Plus, his failure to understand life outside the metropolitan bubble leading up to the events of the Brexit referendum of 2016 and the election of Trump in the same year, something he describes as 'a major failure of vision, curiosity, imagination and empathy.' We also talk about the fact that he wrote the rough draft of The Remains of the Day in...wait for it...FOUR WEEKS.
I really loved this interview: he's just so clever and interesting. And funny too, which is even better.
Thank you, Sir Kazuo Ishiguro, for being my first Nobel laureate guest.
And that's all for season 10! We'll be back in the coming weeks for an extra-special bonus episode which, trust me, you will not want to miss.
*
Klara and the Sun is out now, published by Faber and available to order here
*
How To Fail With Elizabeth Day is hosted by Elizabeth Day, produced by Naomi Mantin and Chris Sharp. We love hearing from you! To contact us, email howtofailpod@gmail.com
*
Social Media:
Elizabeth Day @elizabday
How To Fail @howtofailpod
S9, Ep7 How to Fail: Nadiya Hussain
S9, Ep6 How to Fail: Failosophy Special
S9, Ep5 How to Fail: Ovie Soko
S9, Ep 4 How to Fail: Ruby Wax
S9, Ep3 How to Fail: Annie Nightingale
S9, Ep2 How to Fail: Mohsin Zaidi
S9, Ep1 How to Fail: Adam Buxton
S8, BONUS EPISODE! How to Fail: Gloria Steinem
S8, Ep8 How to Fail: Bernardine Evaristo
S8, Ep7 How to Fail: Siena Castellon
S8, Ep6 How to Fail: Glennon Doyle
S8, Ep5 How to Fail: Julia Samuel
S8, Ep4 How to Fail: Scarlett Moffatt
S8, Ep3 How to Fail: Matthew Syed
S8, Ep2 How to Fail: Samantha Irby
S8, Ep1 How to Fail: Jessie Ware
SPECIAL EPISODE! How to Fail: Daisy Edgar-Jones on being the star of Normal People, the lockdown television hit everyone is talking about
SPECIAL EPISODE! How to Fail: Henry Holland on business failure in the time of Covid-19
SPECIAL EPISODE! How To Fail: Listeners share their Coronavirus stories
SPECIAL EPISODE! How To Fail: Alain De Botton on embracing vulnerability in the age of Coronavirus
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
50 Tastes Of Gray
Dear Alice | Interior Design
Spider-Man Crawlspace Podcast
Anne of Avonlea
Gulliver’s Travels
The Magnus Archives
The Moth