When I got to 40 or so... I had the sense when I looked back over my life I would actually see a mess of decisions, a few of which I had thought about, some of which I had sort of stumbled on, and many that I had no control over whatsoever.

The Remains of the Day is set in the large country house of an English lord in the period surrounding World War II. He became a British citizen in 1982. His fourth novel The Unconsoled takes place in an unnamed Central European city.

In 2008 The Times ranked Ishiguro 32nd on their list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945". Recently his novel Never Let Me Go has been adapted to film.