When We Were Orphans

*Kazuo Ishiguro's new novel Klara and the Sun is now available*

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize



England, 1930s. Christopher Banks has become the country's most celebrated detective, his cases the talk of London society. Yet one unsolved crime has always haunted him: the mysterious disappearance of his parents, in old Shanghai, when he was a small boy. Moving between London and Shanghai of the interwar years, When We Were Orphans is a remarkable story of memory, intrigue and the need to return.



'You seldom read a novel that so convinces you it is extending the possibilities of fiction.' John Carey, Sunday Times





'Ishiguro is the best and most original novelist of his generation and When We Were Orphans could be by no other writer. It haunts the mind. It moves to tears.' Susan Hill, Mail on Sunday



'Discloses a writer not only near the height of his powers but in a league all of his own.' Boyd Tonkin, Independent



Kazuo Ishiguro was born in Nagasaki, Japan, in 1954 and moved to Britain at the age of five. His nine works of fiction have earned him many honours around the world, including the Nobel Prize in Literature and the Booker Prize. His work has been translated into over fifty languages and The Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go, both made into acclaimed films, have each sold over a million copies in Faber editions. He received a knighthood in 2018 for Services to Literature. He also holds the decorations of Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres from France and the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Star from Japan.