A Pale View of Hills

In his best-known book, THE REMAINS OF THE DAY, Kazuo Ishiguro advances the butler's story, not by giving, but by withholding both information and emotion. This novel is about a woman who lived in Nagasaki after the bomb was dropped. We don't hear the explosion. We don't even hear the names of the dead. And yet it's very clear that something perfectly wretched has gone on. Is s...

In his best-known book, THE REMAINS OF THE DAY, Kazuo Ishiguro advances the butler's story, not by giving, but by withholding both information and emotion. This novel is about a woman who lived in Nagasaki after the bomb was dropped. We don't hear the explosion. We don't even hear the names of the dead. And yet it's very clear that something perfectly wretched has gone on. Is still going on. Roe Kendall dramatizes so well that, after a while, I forgot to wonder why an English woman of breeding would be telling the story. Still, this throws one more curtain between the listener and the tragedy. Couldn't they have found somebody Japanese? B.H.C. © AudioFile 2000, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

石黑一雄（Kazuo Ishiguro），日裔英国小说家，1954年生于日本长崎。1989年获得“布克奖”，与奈保尔、拉什迪并称“英国文坛移民三雄”。被英国皇室授勋为文学骑士，并获授法国艺术文学骑士勋章。

1989年，石黑一雄获得享有盛誉的“布克奖”。石黑一雄文体以细腻优美著称，几乎每部小说都被提名或得奖，其作品已被翻译成二十八种语言。

虽然拥有日本和英国双重的文化背景，但石黑一雄却是极为少数的、不专以移民或是国族认同作为小说题材的亚裔作家之一。他致力于写出一本对于生活在任何一个文化背景之下的人们，都能够产生意义的小说。于是，石黑一雄的每一本小说几乎都在开创一个新的格局，横跨了欧洲的贵族文化、现代中国、日本，乃至于1990年代晚期的英国生物科技实验，而屡屡给读者带来耳目一新的惊喜。