Neither of us write in the autobiographical tradition : Kazuo and Naomi Ishiguro
Credit: Howard Sooley/Rosie Powell
Claire Allfree:Kazuo, your new novel Klara and the Sun is narrated by Klara, an “Artificial Friend”, who has been bought by a mother as a robotic companion for her teenage daughter, Josie. Why did you choose to tell the story from the perspective of a non-human figure?
Kazuo Ishiguro: I’ve been drawn to the limitations of a narrator’s viewpoint with all my books. Klara knows very little about the human world but she’s been given this task of helping a teenager not to be lonely so she’s looking at everything through that perspective. Because she’s not human it paradoxically highlights these big questions: What is it to be human? What is love? Do humans need it to alleviate loneliness?