I think the judging process is full of integrity, compared to some other prizes around the world. The fact that they change the panel of judges every year keeps it from becoming corrupt. I think it's very difficult if you've got judges for life; obviously relationships are cultivated between judges and authors, and publishing houses.
Kazuo IshiguroThe fantasy never got beyond thatโI didnโt let itโand though the tears rolled down my face, I wasnโt sobbing or out of control. I just waited a bit, then turned back to the car, to drive off to wherever it was I was supposed to be.
Kazuo IshiguroI can see,โ Miss Emily said, โthat it might look as though you were simply pawns in a game. It can certainly be looked at like that. But think of it. You were lucky pawns. There was a certain climate and now itโs gone. You have to accept that sometimes thatโs how things happen in the world. Peopleโs opinions, their feelings, they go one way, then the other. It just so happens you grew up at a certain point in this process.โ โIt might be just some trend that came and went,โ I said. โBut for us, itโs our life.
Kazuo IshiguroI can't even say I made my own mistakes. Really - one has to ask oneself - what dignity is there in that?
Kazuo IshiguroMaybe all of us at Hailsam had little secrets like that -- little private nooks created out of thin air where we could go off alone without fears and longing.
Kazuo IshiguroThe reason I wouldn't dare to write a Western is simply because that seems to be so much a part of American culture. Maybe if I want to write a Western enough I should try to overcome that fear, but I'll certainly feel like I'm trespassing. I feel that that is so much a part of American foundation myth, it's part of the myth of America, the American vision of what America is, which people have glorified and then challenged and then vilified.
Kazuo Ishiguro