NEVER LET ME GO Kazuo Ishiguro. BIOGRAPHY Born in Nagasaki Japan in 1954 Moved to Great Britain in...
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Transcript of NEVER LET ME GO Kazuo Ishiguro. BIOGRAPHY Born in Nagasaki Japan in 1954 Moved to Great Britain in...
NEVER LET ME GO
Kazuo Ishiguro
BIOGRAPHYBorn in Nagasaki Japan in 1954
Moved to Great Britain in 1960 – father was
oceanographer
Educated at a grammar school for boys in
Surrey, England
Worked as a Grouse Beater on Balmoral Castle
grounds for Queen Mother
B.A. from University of Kent, Canterbury in
English and philosophy
Worked as a residential social worker after
graduating.
Studied creative writing at the University of
East Anglia
Full-time writer since 1982
KAZUO ISHIGURO
'I am a writer who wishes to write international
novels. What is an 'international' novel? I believe it
to be one, quite simply, that contains a vision of life
that is of importance to people of varied
backgrounds around the world. It may concern
characters who jet across continents, but may just as
easily be set firmly in one small locality.'
NOVELS
Novels:
A Pale View of Hills
An Artist of the Floating
World
The Remains of the Day
The Unconsoled
When We Were Orphans
Never Let Me Go
AWARDS & OTHER
He also wrote 2 screenplays, some published short
stories in magazines, and recently published book of short
stories.
His works are translated into over 30 languages.
Has won numerous awards for his writing over his 30-
year career: including: the Booker Prize for Fiction (x4);
the Whitbread Book of the Year or Novel Award (x3); and
the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction (x2).
CRITICAL PERSPECTIVE
Ishiguro's narratives center on memories and their
potential to digress and distort, to forget and to
silence the past, and above all to haunt the present.
The protagonists of his fiction seek to overcome loss
(the personal loss of family members and lovers; the
losses resulting from war) by making sense of the
past through acts of remembrance (Proctor).
BOOK REVIEWS
M. JOHN HARRISONTHE GUARDIAN
This extraordinary and, in the end, rather
frighteningly clever novel isn't about cloning, or
being a clone, at all. It's about why we don't explode,
why we don't just wake up one day and go sobbing
and crying down the street, kicking everything to
pieces out of the raw, infuriating, completely
personal sense of our lives never having been what
they could have been.
JO WALTONTOR
I think these are books that could only be written
by someone utterly steeped in a culture who has
nevertheless always been something of an outsider
in it. The donors in Never Let Me Go grumble and
accept and go on in a scarily recognizable way
TOPICS AND THEMES
Cloning
Acceptance of cultural
norms and expectations
Betrayal
Acceptance
Family
IDEAS FOR TEACHING
CL
ON
ING
Use the formal debate style of argument
and counter-argument to discuss the
viability of cloning humans and the
repercussions of this act.
Read the following article in this format
to create a group writing assignment and
then perform the debate live in class.
Discuss cloning and scientific
advancement in light of the novel
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. Use these
books to discuss the benefits and
detriments
AC
CE
PT
AN
CE
OF
C
UL
TU
RA
L N
OR
MS
A
ND
EX
PE
CT
AT
ION
S
Brainstorm the cultural norms of our society. What
makes something a cultural norm? Compare them to
understood cultural norms of other societies or to
societies presented in other literature.
Read short stories in which the cultural norms and
expectations are different from our own. Watch selected
scenes from Sliders or Star Trek to see human
adaptations to different expectations.
Why do we follow the expected norms? How is this
helpful/harmful to our society?
Read portions of Southwest Educational Development
Laboratory’s article on school norms and expectations.
Discuss the importance of school expectations and the
student role in school climate.
KAZUO ISHIGURO
"When you become a parent, or a teacher, you turn
into a manager of this whole system. You become the
person controlling the bubble of innocence around a
child, regulating it.”
BE
TR
AY
AL
/A
CC
EP
TA
NC
E/
FA
MIL
Y
Find and read several reviews of the the
novel. Compare the reviews and their
critical approaches to the novel.
Write your own review looking at how
Ishiguro’s characters portray the themes
of betrayal, acceptance, and family.
RESOURCES
Proctor, Dr. James. “Kazuo Ishiguro.” Contemporary Writers. British
Council. 2009. http://www.contemporarywriters.com/authors/?p=
auth52
Kerr, Sarah. “Never Let Me Go: When They Were Orphans.” The New
York Times. April 17, 2005. http://www
.nytimes.com/2005/04/17/books/review/17KERRL.html
Harrison, M. John. “Clone Alone.” The Guardian. February 26, 2005.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2005/feb/26/bookerprize2005.bookerp
rize
RESOURCES CONT.
Walton, Jo. “The Upspoken and the Unspeakable: Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me
Go.” Tor. Com. May 5, 2009.
http://www.tor.com/blogs/2009/05/the-upspoken-and-the-unspeakable-kazuo-ishigu
ros-never-let-me-
go
“Reproductive Cloning” Center for Genetics and Society. May 15, 2006.
http://www.geneticsandsociety.org/article.php?id=282
Oracle: ThinkQuest. Cloning Pros and Cons. Projects By Students For Students.
1998. http://library.thinkquest.org/24355/data/reactions/proconmain.html
Southwest Educational Development Laboratory. School Context: Bridge or
Barrier to Change. 1992. July 28, 2011.
http://www.sedl.org/change/school/culture.html