I was gifted Klara and the Sun by one of my best friends for my birthday last year, and I read it for the first time in January, after a few months of sitting on my desk. I put off reading it for a long time, both because there are so many books stuck on my to-be-read and because the author, Kazuo Ishiguro, won the Nobel prize in Literature in 2017, which is quite intimidating! Ultimately, the striking cover (I know... I shouldn't judge books by their covers) and the summary drew me in, and I finally read the novel. For a little bit of context, Klara and the is about an artificial friend, sort of like a robot helper, who is bought by a girl and her mother (a more detailed summary is at the bottom of this page). The novel discusses what it means to be human, but from this non-human perspective.
Do We Want to Turn the Page?
Warning! This next section may contain spoilers about the book. Also, all ratings are based entirely on my opinion and WILL be biased and subjective.
The Summary:
From her place in the store, Klara, an Artificial Friend with outstanding observational qualities, watches carefully the behavior of those who come in to browse, and of those who pass on the street outside. She remains hopeful that a customer will soon choose her, but when the possibility emerges that her circumstances may change forever, Klara is warned not to invest too much in the promises of humans.
In Klara and the Sun, Kazuo Ishiguro looks at our rapidly changing modern world through the eyes of an unforgettable narrator to explore a fundamental question: what does it mean to love?
The Author:
Sir Kazuo Ishiguro (カズオ・イシグロ or 石黒 一雄), OBE, FRSA, FRSL is a British novelist of Japanese origin and Nobel Laureate in Literature (2017). His family moved to England in 1960. Ishiguro obtained his Bachelor's degree from the University of Kent in 1978 and his Master's from the University of East Anglia's creative writing course in 1980. He became a British citizen in 1982. He now lives in London.
His first novel, A Pale View of Hills, won the 1982 Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize. His second novel, An Artist of the Floating World, won the 1986 Whitbread Prize. Ishiguro received the 1989 Man Booker prize for his third novel The Remains of the Day. His fourth novel, The Unconsoled, won the 1995 Cheltenham Prize. His latest novel is The Buried Giant, a New York Times bestseller. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature 2017.
His novels An Artist of the Floating World (1986), When We Were Orphans (2000), and Never Let Me Go (2005) were all shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize.
In 2008, The Times ranked Ishiguro 32nd on their list of "The 50 Greatest British Writers Since 1945". In 2017, the Swedish Academy awarded him the Nobel Prize in Literature, describing him in its citation as a writer "who, in novels of great emotional force, has uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world".
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