When We Were Orphans (Magill’s Literary Annual 1991-2005)
At a glance:
- Author: Kazuo Ishiguro
- First Published: 2000
- Type of Work: Novel
- Time of Work: The early twentieth century
- Setting: London and Shanghai
- Principal Characters: Christopher Banks, Jennifer, Sir Cecil Medhurst, Sarah Hemmings, Wang Ku, Uncle Phillip, Akira Yamashita, Diana Banks, Mr. Banks
- Genres: Long fiction
- Subjects: Memory, Parents and children, Twentieth century, Asia or Asians, Detectives, London, Kidnapping, China or Chinese people, England
- Locales: London, England, Shanghai, China
Since the popular and critical success of his Booker Prize-winning novel The Remains of the Day (1989), Kazuo Ishiguro has experimented with the novel form from the position of his heightened celebrity. Since When We Were Orphans draws on his two previous works for its aesthetic plan, some discussion of the former novels provides a useful sense of context. In The Remains of the Day, Ishiguro draws on the conventions of nineteenth century British fiction, allowing social forms to bind and control the more unruly human pathos underlying the storyline. It is both a...
[The entire page is 1963 words long]
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