Kazuo Ishiguro and Ethics

Kazuo Ishiguro and Ethics addresses the philosophical issues that lie at the heart of Ishiguro?s fiction, shedding light on the moral condition of his characters ? their sense of responsibility and pride in service, their attempts at self-determination and the value they assign to loyalty, love and friendship. Ethics in Ishiguro?s work is structured around the tension between the limits of the characters? agency and their striving towards the good. Ishiguro?s novels are shown to tackle fundamental questions posed by ancient Greek philosophers, especially Plato, and modern Western ones, from Adam Smith through Jean-Paul Sartre to Martha Nussbaum. What is the human soul? What is dignity? What does it mean to be human? These issues are expressed in his narrative world through the universal and timeless language of myths, allegories and images that are both ancient and modern as well as cross-cultural.

Deftly exploring its philosophical underpinnings, Laura Colombino?s incisive study addresses a central question in Ishiguro?s work: how to live ethically in a politically perilous and psychologically obdurate world. Colombino offers a profound meditation on Ishiguro?s career-long unflinching investigation of this most compelling of unresolved questions.

 ? Andrew Bennett, Professor of English, University of Bristol, UK