Kazuo Ishiguro, who won this year’s Nobel Prize in Literature, has a number of strings to his bow, or rather his guitar. The 62-year-old is world famous as a writer of fiction, but his early dream was to be a great singer and songwriter, like last year’s winner, Bob Dylan.

今年诺贝尔文学奖得主石黑一雄不只会写作，他还有一手——弹吉他。现年62岁的他是位举世闻名的小说家，但他早年的梦想却是成为一位伟大的歌手和词曲作家，就像去年的诺奖得主鲍勃·迪伦那样。

His friend and former publisher Robert McCrum recalls the young Ishiguro turning up at the publishing house Faber and Faber with a bunch of his stories in one hand and a guitar over his shoulder. It was his stories that earned him the great honor he received two weeks ago.

他的好友、前出版商罗伯特·麦克鲁姆还记得当时年轻的石黑背着一把吉他，手上拿着一叠他所写的故事，出现在费伯出版社的情景。而正是这些故事让他在两周前获得了诺贝尔奖的殊荣。

As his name indicates, Ishiguro comes from a Japanese background, although he came to Britain from Japan at the age of 5 and is a British citizen who writes in English. He was educated at the University of East Anglia, a school that has become known for training writers.

正如他的名字一样，石黑有着日本血统，尽管他在5岁时就从日本移民到英国，并用英文进行写作。他在以培养作家著称的东安格利亚大学接受了教育。

Ishiguro’s writing is highly restrained. His characters are often reluctant to express themselves, except in a kind of code. This certainly gives his writing a quality in common with that of Jane Austen, an author to whom he is often compared. The best example of this is his novel The Remains of the Day, which later became a successful film.

石黑的写作风格十分克制。他笔下的人物总是不愿意表达自我，除了以某种密码的方式。他的这一写作特点与简·奥斯汀十分相似，两人也经常被拿来进行比较。最好的一个例子便是他所著的小说《长日留痕》，后来也被成功改编成了电影。

The central character of the book is a butler called Stevens. He is an extremely loyal servant to an English lord, and is a character who some might call repressed. He misses out on affection and love because he will not confess his feelings to anyone.

小说的主人公是一位名叫史蒂文斯的男管家。他是一位英国贵族极尽忠诚的仆人，有人也会认为这是个压抑的角色。他错过了自己的爱恋，因为他不会向任何人吐露自己的心声。

The story is told by Stevens, and his style is as polite and unrevealing as his behavior. Of course, we have to read between the lines to uncover the “real” story, which isn’t quite the one the butler is telling. Stevens finds it a challenge to communicate, and communication is often a theme in Ishiguro’s novels.

故事以史蒂文斯的视角进行讲述，他的口吻就像其行为那样有礼又克制。当然，我们需要在字里行间读出“真正的”故事，而这与这位男管家所讲述的大相径庭。史蒂文斯认为沟通是种挑战，而沟通也常是石黑一雄小说的主题。

In this author’s sense of the world, there is a gap between our feelings and our ability to communicate them. The Nobel Committee emphasized this theme when it talked about Ishiguro’s work. The writer has, the committee claimed, “in novels of great emotional force ... uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world”.

在这位作者的世界观中，人们的情感和表达能力之间存在鸿沟。诺贝尔奖委员会在谈及石黑的作品时，着重强调了这一主题。委员会称这位作家“以其小说中巨大的情感力量……发掘了隐藏在我们与世界相联系的幻觉之下的深渊”。