This week, the 2017 Nobel Laureate in Literaure was awarded to Kazuo Ishiguro, author of the already modern classics The Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go. Sara Danius, the Swedish Academy’s permanent secretary said that “If you mix Jane Austen and Franz Kafka then you have Kazuo Ishiguro in a nutshell, but you have to add a little bit of Marcel Proust into the mix.” His trenchant questioning of human perception, memory and (often, but not exclusively British) cultural identity, paired with his stylistic mastery of subtle, yet haunting prose made him one of the most interesting contemporary novelists for the last three decades.

To celebrate the occasion, we invite you to join a debate on “Unlived Lives” in Ishiguro’s novels. You find the previous debate entries by Burkhard Niederhoff (who started this topic), Reinhard Borgmaier and Rebecca Suter here. Or, if you want to start a new debate on Kazuo Ishiguro’s work, follow the guidelines on our “Submit an Article” page.