3D mock up of the book cover for Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro
WorkshopUpcoming

Songwriting for novelists

with Kazuo Ishiguro, Novelist, Nobel laureate

Date
Wed, August 5, 2026
Time
local
Venue
Faber Members, Bloomsbury, London, UK

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What happens in the room

Ishiguro on what writing lyrics taught him about first person restraint, with exercises for prose writers.

How it went

Everyone had to cut a paragraph to twelve words and keep the feeling. Two people managed it; both were poets.

About Kazuo Ishiguro

  • Nobel Prize in Literature, 2017
  • Booker Prize, 1989
  • Knighted for services to literature, 2019

Born in Nagasaki and raised in Surrey from the age of five, Ishiguro wanted to be a musician before he was a novelist, and still writes lyrics. He is famous for writing The Remains of the Day in a four week 'crash' after years of false starts, a method he defends as a way of holding an entire book in his head at once.

Listen to episode 125 →

Reserve a seat

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Also with Kazuo

3D mock up of the book cover for The Remains of the Day by Kazuo IshiguroIn conversationUpcoming

The Remains of the Day · Faber & Faber, 1989

The four week crash: writing The Remains of the Day

with Kazuo Ishiguro, Novelist, Nobel laureate

Nobel Prize in Literature, 2017

Date
Tue, February 10, 2026
Time
local time
Venue
Conway Hall, London, UK

Ishiguro reconstructs the month in 1987 when he answered no letters and no telephone calls, hour by hour.

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3D mock up of the book cover for Never Let Me Go by Kazuo IshiguroIn conversationUpcoming

Never Let Me Go · Faber & Faber, 2005

Time and tenderness: writing the family you invented

with Kazuo Ishiguro, Novelist, Nobel laureate

Nobel Prize in Literature, 2017

Date
Wed, July 15, 2026
Time
local time
Venue
Cambridge Union, Cambridge, UK

Ishiguro on narrators who cannot say what they feel, and the technical problem of a reader who must.

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