Kazuo Ishiguro: The International as a Third Space

This article envisagesIshigurian fiction as a site of compromise wherelinguistic and non-linguistic ingredients are mobilized to engage with the international bookmarket and its exigencies. This paper, thus, addresses Ishiguros texts as commodities, and sets out to uncover the complex and intricate processes whereby the authornegotiateshis status as a language migrant, cognizant of the aestheticdilemmas inherent in World Literature as well as of the stakes involved in writing for a global audience. It will similarly undertake to interrogate the ambivalent position of Ishiguro as a Japanese-bornBriton, and to explore the way otherness translates in hisworks, while coping with the tensions inherent in hisbicultural profile itfurther examines the motivations of the Western prize machinery in establishing Ishiguro as a literarymegastar through the authentification of his oeuvre with a strinkingly lavish over-awardedness.Concurrently, it seeks to probe the hijacking of the majority- if not the totality- of his works by the mighty movie industry which perfecty and faithfully encapsulates the essence of capitalist consumerism. This recuperation inevitably calls into scrutiny the very nature and substance of Ishiguros fiction, besides interpellating us to the canibalizing tendencies of the entertainment business in the West, while at the same time problematizingIshiguros stancecaughtbetween marketability imperatives, audience expectations and authorial integrity.