It is 1948. Japan is rebuilding her cities after the calamity of World War Two, her people putting defeat behind them and looking to the future. The celebrated artist, Masuji Ono, fills his days attending to his garden, his house repairs, his two grown daughters and his grandson his evenings drinking with old associates in quiet lantern-lit bars. His should be a tranquil retirement. But as his memories continually return to the past - to a life and career deeply touched by the rise of Japanese militarism - a dark shadow begins to grow over his serenity.

An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro. A Japanese artist looks back on his life after World War Two in this celebrated novel from the author of the Booker Prize-winning novel, The Remains of the Day , Never Let Me Go , and The Buried Giant .

Kazuo Ishiguro, geb. 1954 in Nagasaki, kam 1960 nach London, wo er Englisch und Philosophie studierte. 1995 wurde ihm der Cheltenham Prize verliehen und 2006 der Belletristikpreis der 'Zeit'. Kazuo Ishiguros Werk wurde bisher in 28 Sprachen übersetzt. Der Autor lebt mit Frau und Kind in London. 2006 erhält er den Corine-Preis.