Kazuo Ishiguro was born in Nagasaki, Japan in 1954, but since the age of five, he has lived in England. 

His most celebrated novel, "The Remains of the Day," was published in 1989 and awarded the Booker Prize for Fiction. The book, adapted to film in 1993, tells the story of an aging English butler as he reflects on his life. 

Memory and what it means to be human are recurring themes in Ishiguro's work, including his science fiction novel of 2005, "Never Let Me Go." The Nobel Prize was awarded to Ishiguro “who, in novels of great emotional force, has uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world.”

[Photo credit: A. Mahmoud, Nobel Prize Outreach]