Kazuo Ishiguro, Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall

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Published in 2009,

Nocturnes

is Kazuo Ishiguro’s seventh work and his only book of stories to date. Not a collection of already published material,

Nocturnes

comprises, as the subtitle suggests,

Five Stories of Music and Nightfall

. Written as a unified narrative, the book is a “cycle of interlinked short stories” (Groes), all narrated in the first person by male characters of similar temperament who differ in age and nationality. Ishiguro considers his approach towards the composition of

Nocturnes

to be that of a novelist: in a

Guardian

interview Ishiguro describes it as “ a fictional book that happens to be divided into five movements” (qtd in Aitkenhead).

The similarities in narrative style and theme among the tales in Nocturnes produce a cohesive chronicle of discomfort,

3121 words

Citation: Logotheti, Anastasia. "Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 14 June 2018 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=26521, accessed 25 November 2024.]

26521 Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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