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