One of them, Kazuo, left Japan and became a little Englishman, but he always felt like an outsider, which is a good thing for a writer, which is what he became. Once upon a time there were two men who shared the same surname and an interest in robots. I can thoroughly recommend it.Thanks for helping support Books on Asia! Klara and the Sun is a masterful piece of writing, picking up on the notion of artificial intelligence and the dystopian extrapolation of current societal developments, making it a unique and, in some ways, a frightening reading experience. Ishiguro has written this story in a style as Japanese as bonsai or pop-culture anime – in a word, with restraint. Gradually Ishiguro introduces us to other important characters in Josie’s life and reveals a perverse twisting of human emotions, especially love and fear and their interplay in human relationships. Josie has been “lifted” but her childhood friend and neighbour Rick has not. Her sister is dead and her father lives elsewhere.

Read an interview with Ishiguro about Klara and the Sun at the guardianĪt its core, the story revolves around the relationship between Klara and Josie, a sickly child living with her high-ranking mother and a housekeeper. Privileged children are “lifted”, schooled remotely until college (university) years AFs compensate for limited social contact. Identification with America, though, is not absolute, and the countryside could be English or even Australian. Klara and the Sun is set in a near-future America, fractured and riven with elitism, fascism and probably every other “ism” there could possibly be. Klara is an exceptional AF, highly observant and keen to learn about the world around her. AFs are replicants or, for the old fashioned, robots, designed to act as friends for teenagers. What better way to comment on human behaviour than to see it through the eyes of a non-human, in this case Klara an AF (artificial friend). Ishiguro was knighted in 2018 for services to literature and has been honoured in France and Japan. He is also a screenwriter, musician, and a short-story writer. Kazuo Ishiguro is a Nobel Prize-winning author who was born in Nagasaki, Japan, and has lived in Britain since the age of five.

Christmas Day in Harlaxton by Vanessa Page.

Martha Richardson Memorial Poetry Prize 2016.

Southern Cross Short Story Competition 2015.

Southern Cross Short Story Competition 2019.

Southern Cross Short Story Competition 2017.

Martha Richardson Memorial Poetry Prize 2022.

Martha Richardson Memorial Poetry Prize 2020.

Martha Richardson Memorial Poetry Prize 2018.

2021 SCSSC winner: Wheeler, by Benjamin Forbes.

2021 Southern Cross Short Story Competition – Judge’s Notes.

2021 Southern Cross Short Story Competition.

Other writing competitions and opportunities.

Book review klara and the sun