Kazuo Ishiguro (5:04)

No, I wasn't. Actually. There were only six of us on the course. It wasn't like it is now. People didn't really have a concept of a creative writing course in those days. This was really a pioneering course. And actually, even within the University of East Anglia, a lot of the other academics really frowned upon it. They thought it shouldn't exist, we shouldn't be giving mas for things like this. It only existed because Malcolm Bradbury, the guy who put this on the course, was a celebrated writer and academic. To be frank, I wasn't. I was pleasantly surprised that the standard wasn't that high. Although you know, I think there was some interesting writing being done on the course. And very rapidly I was seen to be the star of the course, which I wasn't so sure about myself. But before I went, yes, I didn't know what to expect because I was a bit of an imposter. I hadn't really written much fiction.

Elizabeth Day (5:54)

Do you feel like an imposter now, or do you think the Nobel Prize has helped you maybe get over that?

Kazuo Ishiguro (6:00)

I don't think the Nobel Prize has done anything one way or the other about that. I mean, we can talk about this later when we come to failures. I mean, at some deeper level, I worry about the whole imposter thing, yes, but not at the level of, do I deserve to be published? Do I deserve to be called a writer? I don't think I ever had much doubts about that once I got going. But at a more profound level, I do ask, is what I do really that worthwhile? Does it merit something like a Nobel Prize alongside scientists? You know, people have made huge breakthroughs in medicine. Do I merit a Nobel Prize alongside such people for what I do? And I guess some of the things that have been happening in the world in recent years do lead me to actually wonder, what is the purpose of writing novels and putting them out there? Is it that important? In fact, I think, have we been contributing to something that's a bit dodgy, given the way we seem to have shifted over onto emotions rather than truth and fact, this idea that, oh, what you feel is what matters? You can. If you feel it, then it's true. I'm kind of wondering if the huge emphasis I've always put in my work on being able to communicate through emotions and to relate to readers emotionally, is that a sound way to be going about things at that kind of larger level? I've often thought, you know, is this thing what I do, Is it just some sort of cultural accident that it's been given a certain place in the hierarchy of things, and I get given prizes and knighthoods and things, but actually that's just some sort of historical and cultural accident? And is it actually so valuable? Is it actually contributing to something adrift away from truth and a kind of dispassionate way of looking at things.

Elizabeth Day (7:45)

Fascinating. I don't have an answer, other than saying that I think what you do is incredibly valuable, because every single one of your novels encourages the reader to examine what life means and what brings it meaning. And it's interesting to me that you're talking about how useful emotion is. Because it strikes me now that Klara and the sun is a meditation on that in many ways, it's in which you use the point of view of an artificial friend who doesn't fully understand the nuance of this human world that she finds herself in, or even sometimes what she's literally seeing. And therefore, you, as a writer have to use deceptively simple language to reveal quite profound truths. And I just wanted to know on a technical level how difficult that was for you, because essentially you have to see the world anew.

Kazuo Ishiguro (8:36)

Yeah, but I've always had a habit of doing that ever since I, you know, I started to write. I've always written from the point of view of an outsider, a foreigner, a peculiar kind of near autistic butler, a clone. It's my kind of favored stance, is to use a distanced and sometimes peculiarly kind of emotionally restrained viewpoint to look at human beings. I'm always after perspective. And so I like to create things that perhaps offer readers slightly startling perspective on familiar things. No, Clara wasn't such an amazing departure for me at all, really. I didn't feel. It felt oddly natural to me to be talking through a robot. I don't know what that says.

Elizabeth Day (9:20)

Was it startling for you to see the world anew when you moved to Guildford from Nagasaki at the age of five?

Kazuo Ishiguro (9:27)

It was startling at some level, but not as much as all that, because, I mean, you can cast your mind back to when you were very young, but everything was startling when you're only five. You remember when. Well, maybe you don't remember, but, I mean, presumably there was a time when you couldn't walk, and so the world was something that you crawled around, and then suddenly you could walk and you could run and you couldn't speak, and then you could speak. And so it just seemed to be part of that. It was another new batch of experiences. But I went to school at the same time for the first time as the English kids did. So I. I was kind of in sync with my peers in that sense. I didn't have that weird experience of coming to a school where people had been together for ages and they all spoke in this different language. I felt I was kind of learning things at more or less the same pace. It was odd because I don't remember actually not being able to speak English, but obviously when I arrived, I didn't speak English, but I don't really have a memory of consciously learning the language.

Elizabeth Day (10:27)

You mentioned the butler there, from the Remains of the Day, just before we get onto your Failures. Is it true that you wrote the Remains of the in four weeks using a technique you and your wife describe as the crash?

Kazuo Ishiguro (10:41)

No, it's not true at all. This has become a bit of a weird myth. I mean, I said this in some interview. Maybe I wrote about it somewhere. No, this was just a way to get the rough stuff, the rough draft done. And I was finding at the time difficult, partly out of self discipline, but partly because of other obligations to just get down to it. And so we just cleared the deck of everything. I mean, in those days we didn't have things like the Internet, so it was easier. I wasn't allowed to pay any attention to the answering machine. I wasn't allowed to open any mail in those days. I used to spend a lot of time shopping and cooking. I didn't do any of that. I was just given one hour off for lunch and two hours off for dinner. And then after dinner I'd have to go and work again. And I had Sundays off. That was it for four weeks. We just thought, let's see what happens if I did that. And it wasn't just the amount of time, it was the psychological space you entered into when you did that. It was a bit weird, but yes, it was like before we had this concepts of virtual reality and alternative realities. It was like I found myself entering a fictional world that seemed to be more real than the world outside. And on Sundays I would go outside and giggle. I wander in the street outside and giggle at everybody. And the fact that the high street, Sydenham High street was on the slope seemed to be hilarious.

Elizabeth Day (12:04)

I love also the idea that you and your wife were involved in this endeavour together. Is she very much someone whose opinion you respect as a reader? Will she be someone who reads your work first? How involved is she in the creative process?

Kazuo Ishiguro (12:17)

Oh, she's vital to the creative process. You have to understand that for one reason or another, we've been together for 40 years. And so she knew me before I was a writer. You know, when we met, I hadn't written anything. I was a would be singer songwriter. And so she was there criticizing the very first things I wrote on paper and saying, ha, you know, what's this? Do you reckon you're a writer because you've written this? I mean, look at so, you know, stories, whatever. I mean, she was the first person to look at them, scrutinize them, say which ones were good, which ones weren't. And so I've kind of got used to that. I mean, she's a Very good critic and editor. But the important thing is I know where she's coming from. I know when to ignore her and when not to ignore her. Most of the time I don't ignore her because I get in real trouble if I do ignore her. And I mean, it's almost second nature to me, you know, that she's part of the team. Sometimes you get these musical duos, but nevertheless their act is named after just one person. Like a person I really admire at the moment is Gideon Welch, the American singer. But actually there are a couple. It's Gideon Welch and David Rawdings, but it's a two person act with a name. The band's name is Gideon Welch. And I kind of feel it. It's a little bit like that with me and my wife. She doesn't just edit afterwards. I mean, she sometimes gives me the ideas to start with.

Elizabeth Day (13:34)

That's so lovely. And your wife's name is Lorna. Let's give her her name. Yeah, she's Tribute to Lorna.

Kazuo Ishiguro (13:40)

Lorna Shiguro. And now I've got another member of the family who I have to get past before I can send anything off, which is my daughter, who's now a published writer. She had a short story collection early in 2020. She has a book coming out and her first novel coming out at the same time as me in 2021. And I have to get past her as well now. And so for Clara, for instance, I thought I'd finished clara back in 2019. Yeah, in the spring of 2019. I thought I'd finished it, but my wife told me how to do about four months more work on it. She didn't say, do four months more work. She said, you've got to change this, this, this, this. And it took me four months. Then I thought I better show it to my daughter. And then huge pile of notes. And so I spent about 10 more months on account of these family members who wouldn't allow me to show it to my agent or anything. It's tough, you know, it's very difficult. But I mean, what can you do?

Elizabeth Day (14:37)

Why did you call it knife?

Salman Rushdie (14:39)

Well, I mean, just two reasons. One is the obvious reason, which is that it starts with a knife attack my head works in a very free, associative way. So I started thinking about knives that I knew about in art and film and books and so on. And then I thought language itself is a kind of tool which I can use to fight back, if you like. So I began to think of language and this book as being kind of my knife. Not in order to injure anybody, but in order to, as it were, cut things open and understand and explain them.

Elizabeth Day (15:17)

You make the decision not to name the assailant, the would be assassin. You call him the A. And you also made the decision to write knife in the first person. Your previous memoir, Joseph Anton, was written in the third. Can I ask why you made those decisions?

Salman Rushdie (15:32)

Well, not naming him was. I just didn't want his name in my book.

Elizabeth Day (15:36)

Yes, fair enough. Yes.

Salman Rushdie (15:41)

And I actually remembered this thing that Margaret Thatcher used to say about the ira. She said, don't give them the oxygen of publicity. And I thought, okay, you know, let's not give this guy the oxygen of publicity. It is one of the few moments in my life when I've been inspired by Margaret Thatcher.

Elizabeth Day (16:02)

There's more than one.

Salman Rushdie (16:03)

Well, well, you know, actually back in the bad old days when, when the, there was this major police protection here. I mean, I met her a couple of times when, when she was Prime Minister, you know, and the most unexpected thing about Margaret Thatcher is that she's.

Elizabeth Day (16:21)

Very touchy feely with men, I hear.

Salman Rushdie (16:24)

Yeah, she puts, put her hands on your arm and shoulders and how are you dear, etc. It's very kind of, kind of in a way, auntie like, you know, but very unexpected and quite disarming, you know. And the third person. Well, you know, when I wrote that earlier book, Joseph Anton, it was quite a long time after the events that were described in the book. It was several, several years later. And what I thought is that the, that the me who was writing that book was at a. Was so slightly different than the me who was being written about. You know, I mean, I was in a better place, I was in a better spirit. You know, life had improved and the person being written about was in very difficult situation and under a lot of stress and so on. So I thought there's a little distance between the two me's and the third person in a way dramatized that difference. This time there's no distance at all. But the thing about that is somebody attacks you with a knife, I thought there's no way this can be written except in the first person. Because also it's a very kind of, very unguarded and kind of undefended book. And I think it doesn't require the distance of the third person.

Elizabeth Day (17:37)

We chatted a bit before we started recording about whether talking about this re. Traumatises you and you've been kind enough and generous enough to say that you're okay with it?

Salman Rushdie (17:47)

Yeah, that's got a little switch in my head has flipped so that instead of me talking about the attack, I'm talking about the book. About the attack.

Elizabeth Day (17:56)

Yes.

Salman Rushdie (17:57)

So I'm talking about a book. And that I think is a way of defending myself from the risk of retraumatizing.

Elizabeth Day (18:05)

Let's talk about the book then. And that opening account of what happened to you. Would you mind telling us your memory of seeing the assailant?

Salman Rushdie (18:18)

Yeah. The Chautauqua Institution is this very pretty, beautiful, peaceful place in upstate New York. It's kind of sylvan and peaceful and full of silver haired liberal retirees. Nobody locks their door. It's the last place on earth where you'd expect an act of violence to occur. There's this amphitheater of space which is actually quite large. I mean, it seats like 4,000 people. But on this occasion there are probably 1,500 people in the audience. And we had just come out on stage to have a conversation about my friend Henry Reese, who runs an organization in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which gives refuge to writers from various parts of the world who need. Who need refuge. So they were celebrating the 20th anniversary of his project. And so I was there for him. You know, I wasn't there to talk about me, I was there to talk about him. And we've just, we just come out and been introduced and sat down in our chairs. And I saw this person get up from the auditorium not very far back, about six or seven rows back, wearing dark clothes and wearing a face mask, a black Covid face mask. And he started running. I was on the right hand side of the stage and to my right there was a small flight of like four steps down from the stage level to the audience level. And he just sprinted up the steps and rushed at me. I had a pretty good idea of.

Elizabeth Day (19:45)

What it was you recount in the book. The idea of, oh, it's you. That sort of familiarity of, oh, this has come at last.

Salman Rushdie (19:55)

Yeah. Cause I had, I mean, back in the early days after the initial threats, obviously I had thought about it, you know, I thought about the possibility of an attack like that happening. And then I'd stop thinking about it. Because, you know, I moved to New York City in just after the millennium. I mean, like January 2000. And I'd been living there at that moment for more than 23 years. And I'd been leading the ordinary life of a writer. I'd been doing things that writers do. I'd been going on book tour. I'd Been doing readings and going to literary festivals and giving lectures and writing books. There had never been a moment of trouble. And so I thought, you know, okay, that's over. And then it wasn't.

Elizabeth Day (20:45)

You recount this thought process, and you also write that the thought of death you were quite matter of fact about, but you didn't feel pain, or at least you can't remember feeling the pain.

Salman Rushdie (20:57)

Yeah, it's very strange that. I mean, as part of the work of writing the book, I had to read about other people's witnesses, evidence of what they saw and heard. And quite a lot of the people who were interviewed said that they'd heard me screaming with pain. You know, oddly, I have no memory of pain. It's, I guess, some kind of shock reaction. So I remember, you know, being on the ground and seeing a lot of blood and seeing people rushing to help. What I don't remember is pain. So there's this curious disconnect between. Between outside me and inside me. So I tried to write about that.

Elizabeth Day (21:35)

You do, however, remember as part of your extensive rehabilitation process, your eyelid being sewn up and that being excruciating.

Salman Rushdie (21:43)

Oh, yeah. They said if we stitch the eyelid shut, then the eye will be able to moisturize itself and will allow it to heal. And I said, that sounds really painful. They said, no, no, there'll be a very powerful local anesthetic. All I can say is either they lied or if that's how much it hurt with the anesthetic. I can only imagine what it would have. How much it would have hurt without the anesthetic because it was agonizing. Picture to yourself a needle going through your eyelid.

Elizabeth Day (22:16)

Actually, one of my worst fears. I mean, I salute you for getting through it, and thank goodness you did. And thank goodness you're here. I wonder how your relationship with your body has changed through this process.

Salman Rushdie (22:28)

Well, I mean, really, that's a great question. Because, you know, if you're a novelist, you don't really pay a lot of attention to your body. And this was such an intensely physical experience that it connected me in a way to my physicality. It showed me the kind of miracle of this thing we live in and its ability to heal. I mean, for example, my liver was badly damaged, but the liver regenerates, so boom, it's just back. I also lost an enormous amount of weight.

Elizabeth Day (23:03)

You look extremely. Well, I have to say, in the.

Salman Rushdie (23:06)

Years before the attack, I'd put on a lot of much too much weight. This thing happens. And I lost £55. I mean, not a diet technique to be recommended.

Elizabeth Day (23:17)

Is that your next book? It's the Rushdie Diet.

Kazuo Ishiguro (23:19)

Exactly.

Salman Rushdie (23:20)

It's like Jane Fonda's workout book.

Elizabeth Day (23:26)

Please do follow how to fail to get new episodes as they land on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. Please tell all your friends this is an Elizabeth Day and Sony Music Entertainment original podcast. Thank you so much for listening.

Salman Rushdie (23:49)

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Kazuo Ishiguro (24:31)

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