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An Old Writer Looks at the New World An Old Writer Looks at the New World
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Photo by Andy Kelly/Unsplash
Fiction

An Old Writer Looks at the New World

An Interview with Kazuo Ishiguro
Sylwia Stano
Reading
time 17 minutes
Sylwia Stano:
is half of the Bibliocreatio duo.

In Klara and the Sun, his first book since receiving the Nobel Prize in Literature, Kazuo Ishiguro depicts a world to be, where machines will have the same emotions, dreams and need for love as humans do.

Sylwia Stano: What have you done to prevent yourself from being struck by hubris after winning the Nobel Prize?

Kazuo Ishiguro: I hope I might be protected to some extent by the advice I’ve had from other Nobel Prize winners. I haven’t met many writers who have won the Nobel Prize, but I have met a lot of scientists who have. Among the scientific community, people have identified something called the ‘genius syndrome’. There is an acknowledged phenomenon of scientists who think that because they won the Nobel Prize, they are a genius at everything. This becomes embarrassing. It’s very obvious that they don’t know anything about these areas and they make fools out of themselves. It’s more obvious in the science field. But I think possibly people who win the Nobel in Literature are just as vulnerable to that. So I had to protect myself against not so much hubris, but the ‘genius syndrome’. I had to remember that I was given my Nobel Prize for doing something quite small. Just my little bit of work. I should understand that I’m not able to now branch out into all kinds of things. I should be quite humbled, as well as very grateful.

How has winning the Nobel Prize changed your life and the way you write?

I’m not sure about that. It was a wonderful experience. A fantastic honour. I feel quite embarrassed that I was given that prize when there are so many great writers who have not won it. I’m very grateful, but I feel like it happened in a parallel universe to a different version of me. And when I come back to my study, it’s exactly the same. It’s very untidy, there is paper everywhere, my problems as a writer are exactly the same. In fact, they are usually quite large. I don’t seem to have become any more intelligent or any more imaginative. Often the reverse, I think.

As far as this book, Klara and the Sun, is concerned, I was one-third of the way through it when the Nobel Prize struck me. Almost like a lorry or something – hitting me while

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Sylwia Stano:
is half of the Bibliocreatio duo.
Publish date: 03.03.2021

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Illustration by Igor Kubik
Fiction

The Model Worker

Artur Kornel
Artur Kornel:

is a Silesian who was born in 1987 in Chorzów, and now lives in Warsaw. He travels, reads a lot, and has lately been doing more and more writing. He’s an anarchist who loves garage concerts and stormy discussions that last until dawn. From 2013 to 2017 he was on the editorial staff at “Gazeta Mysłowicka”, where he wrote a column about Upper Silesia. His personal interests include the impact of technology on society, and issues affecting the future, such as artificial intelligence, cyborgization, and transhumanism in the widest sense.

Warsaw, the near future. Work has become the privilege of the few, and people have everything done for them by intelligent robots. Wili, therefore, like the other inhabitants of the city, devotes his days to indiscriminate fun. But today, fate will smile on him.

Although he’d gone to bed in the early hours, he woke up before seven as usual. He opened his eyes and stared at the white of the ceiling for a good few minutes, trying to remember the details of the previous evening. He was thirsty, but not thirsty enough to get up and fetch a glass of water. So he lay on the mattress, turning from side to side. A few minutes later, bored to death of lying down, he stood in front of the mirror above the sink and recoiled at the sight of himself. The inveterate lack of sleep imposed by his nightlife was increasingly taking its toll. These days, he’d barely notice the dark circles under his puffy eyes if it weren’t for the greying beard and dull, wrinkled skin. “Not good, Wili, my lad, you’re turning into a zombie,” he said to himself.

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