“Memories, even your most precious ones, fade surprisingly quickly. But I don’t go along with that. The memories I value most, I don’t ever see them fading.”
This quote of the 2017 winner of Nobel Prize in Literature, Kazuo Ishiguro, British novelist of Japanese origin, in his acclaimed story, Never Let Me Go , reflected brightly in his own life when he relived memories of his friendship with the former Vice-Principal of St. Joseph's College, Tiruchi, A. Sebastian D Pillai, when both were students of M.A. Literature at the University of East Anglia (UEA) during 1979-80.
In an email addressed to Prof. Pillai, the celebrated author shared nostalgic memories about their days in UEA, other classmates and teachers, and his recent visit to the university.
"I was at UEA this autumn and did a public event," the Nobel Laureate wrote, and then shared with Prof. Pillai the sad news that their favourite teachers, Sir Malcolm Bradbury and Lorna Sage, died many years ago.
Prof. Pillai, who established contact with the Nobel Laureate of Japanese origin through the Alumni Office of the University of East Anglia after a gap of over three decades, has vivid memories of the high esteem in which the Nobel Laureate was held by Sir Malcolm Bradbury, also a famous novelist, for his creative writing ability.
Prof. Pillai, who went to the UAE to pursue M.A. Literature on a British Council scholarship, recollects with a sense of elation the day when ‘Ish’, as he used to be called by friends then, stayed over with him, and the numerous occasions when they used to move around in the campus together.
“There were ample indications that Ish would become a celebrated writer. The short stories of Ish while in college used to be published by reputed entities. A story titled, A strange and sometimes sadness , he presented in one of the seminars was published by Faber and Faber.” Prof. Pillai recalls.
Mr. Ishiguro’s first novel, A Pale View of The Hills , describing the life of a Japanese woman living in England after surviving the Nagasaki disaster just a year after graduating won the Royal Society of Literature Award the same year.
Likewise, the second novel, An Artist of the Floating World , brought out in 1986 won the Whitbread Book of the Year Award and The Remains of the Day , released during 1989, was recognised with the prestigious Booker Prize,” Prof. Pillai recollected.
The fourth novel, The Unconsoled , published in 1995 won the Cheltenham Prize, and the last novel, The Buried Giant , was nominated for the World Fantasy Award for the best novel in 2016. There were varieties in his captivating narrative that infused uniqueness in all these novels, he explained.
The enriching association with a person of such a stature at a prime point of life was, in fact, a trigger to Prof. Pillai for writing the books he authored decades later on Post Modernism, which are prescribed texts in several universities.
With the old friendship revived, Prof. Pillai is contemplating inviting the Nobel Laureate to India.
