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An Artist of the Floating World

by Kazuo Ishiguro

Published: 1989-09-19
Paperback : 206 pages

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This is the story of an artist as an aging man, struggling through the wreckage of Japan's World War II experience. Ishiguro's first ...

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Introduction

This is the story of an artist as an aging man, struggling through the wreckage of Japan's World War II experience. Ishiguro's first novel.

Editorial Review

In An Artist of the Floating World, Kazuo Ishiguro offers readers of the English language an authentic look at postwar Japan, "a floating world" of changing cultural behaviors, shifting societal patterns and troubling questions. Ishiguro, who was born in Nagasaki in 1954 but moved to England in 1960, writes the story of Masuji Ono, a bohemian artist and purveyor of the night life who became a propagandist for Japanese imperialism during the war. But the war is over. Japan lost, Ono's wife and son have been killed, and many young people blame the imperialists for leading the country to disaster. What's left for Ono? Ishiguro's treatment of this story earned a 1986 Whitbread Prize.

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by Mary B. (see profile) 03/15/19

"My favorite part was that it was short"by Marcy W. (see profile) 04/05/18

I wish we had an option for a sideways thumb. It's not really thumbs down so much as "meh." The author had some habits that I found annoying (For example, going backward within a backward gl... (read more)

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