Conversation One (1-4)
W: Mr. Ishiguro, have you ever found one of your books at a secondhand bookstore?
M: Yes. That kind of thing is difficult. (1) If they’ve got my book there, I think, “Well, this is an insult! Somebody didn’t want to keep my book!” But if it’s not there I feel it’s an insult too. I think, “Why aren’t people exchanging my book? Why isn’t it in this store?”
W: Does being a writer require a thick skin?
M: (2)Yes, for example, my wife can be very harsh. I began working on my latest book, The Buried Giant, in 2004 but I stopped after I showed my wife a little section. She thought it was rubbish.
W: Even after you won a Booker Prize?
M: She’s not intimidated at all and she criticizes me in exactly the same way she did when I was first unpublished and I was starting.
W: But you would never compromise on your vision.
M: （2）No, I wouldn’t ever compromise on the essential, the ideas or the themes. This isn’t really what my wife is trying to criticize me about. It’s always about execution.
W: So why did you put your book, The Buried Giant, aside for so long? Apparently you started working on it over 10 years ago.
M: (3)I’ve often stopped writing a book and left it for a few years. And by the time I come back to it, it may have changed. Usually my imagination has moved on and I can think of different contexts or a different way to do it.
W: What does it feel like when you finally finish a book?
M: (4) It’s funny you ask that because I never have this moment when I feel, “Ah, I’ve finished!” I watch footballers at the end of the match, you know, the whistle goes and they’ve won or lost. Until then they’ve been giving everything they have and at that moment they know it’s over. It’s funny for an author. There’s never a finishing whistle.
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