Discovering Kazuo Ishiguro: A Curated Starter Guide

1. The Remains of the Day

Winner of the 1989 Booker Prize, The Remains of the Day remains one of Ishiguro’s most hard-hitting and beautifully restrained novels. It tells the story of a devoted English butler who has spent his life serving in one of England’s “great houses,” convinced he is contributing to humanity by serving a “great gentleman.” But through his vivid interactions before and after the Second World War, we slowly realise how much he’s hidden from himself.

Ishiguro turns the story into a subtle game of dramatic irony, where the reader often sees the truth before Stevens does. A perfect start to understanding Ishiguro’s distinctive storytelling.

2. Klara and the Sun

If you keep an eye on the Booker Prize, this one will feel familiar—Klara and the Sun was longlisted in 2021 and remains one of Ishiguro’s most talked-about recent novels. We meet Klara, an Artificial Friend designed to keep children company. She’s bright, optimistic, and endlessly curious, observing every customer who walks into the store and every passerby outside the window.

Klara desperately hopes someone will choose her, but she’s warned not to place too much faith in human promises. And that’s where Ishiguro works his magic: he gives us a robot to explore a fundamental question: what does it mean to love? If you’re new to him, this is a wonderfully accessible—and surprisingly moving—place to start.

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3. Never Let Me Go

Shortlisted for The Man Booker Prize 2005, Never Let Me Go imagines the lives of three children raised in a darkly altered version of England. What first appears to be an almost idyllic childhood unravels as the truth slowly surfaces through the narrator, Kathy—now 31—who looks back to make sense of what really happened to them.

The rest is best left a mystery, because that’s exactly how Ishiguro intended it. The revelations come quietly, heartbreakingly, and with devastating emotional weight. This is a novel that will wreck you (in the best way) and reshape the way you think about empathy.

4. The Unconsoled

This isn’t the best Ishiguro novel to start with—but it’s the one that completely rewrites your idea of who he is as a writer. After the success of The Remains of the Day, Ishiguro swung in a wildly different direction and published The Unconsoled in 1995—a surreal, dreamlike story set in an unnamed European city where Ryder, a pianist, can never quite reach the recital he’s supposed to give.

People appear and disappear, places shift without logic, and Ryder’s rising anxiety feels tied to something deeper—his lifelong urge to please everyone around him. It’s strange, bold, and unforgettable—best saved for when you’re ready to see Ishiguro at his most experimental.

5. When We Were Orphans

Ishiguro loves bending genres, and When We Were Orphans is his take on a detective novel—though in true Ishiguro fashion, it’s far from a typical one. Shortlisted for the 2000 Booker Prize, the story moves between 1930s England and Shanghai.

It follows Christopher Banks, London’s celebrated detective, who has spent his whole life haunted by one mystery: the disappearance of his parents in Old Shanghai when he was a child. As the world edges closer to war, he becomes convinced that returning to Shanghai will finally give him the answers.

Finding Your Way Into Kazuo Ishiguro’s World

No matter which book you start with, you won’t be disappointed. Kazuo Ishiguro’s world is a maze you’ll gladly get lost in—full of memory, fragility, regret, anxieties, and the kinds of truths that gently sit with you long after you finish reading. He hasn’t written a bad or even mediocre novel, and his many Booker shortlists and longlists are proof of just how consistently brilliant he is.

If you’re new to him, let this be your sign to finally dive in. And if you’ve read him before, consider this your reminder to revisit one of his stories with fresh eyes.

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