Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

Nominated for the Booker Prize and one of Mr Jenkins' favourite novelists...

'A story of love, friendship and memory, Never Let Me Go is charged throughout with a sense of the fragility of life.'

When an unorthodox teacher breaks ranks and spells the truth out to her bemused charges, we are not entirely surprised....

'You were brought into this world for a purpose, and your futures, all of them, have been decided.'

From the very first page of this thrilling dystopian vision, hints have been dropped that the pupils of Hailsham, an exclusive boarding school, are not ordinary children. There is, primarily, the way that the novel's narrator, Kathy H, who is now 31, peppers her story with unexpected and incongruous vocabulary: who are the 'donors' for whom she is a 'carer', and what does it mean when they 'complete'? Why is Kathy so proud of her meagre trappings of independence - a bedsit and car - and so alert to the jealousy they might inspire in others?

As Kathy's reminiscences of her schooldays unfold, and we learn more of her and her friends Tommy and Ruth's peculiar upbringing, the sense of mystery deepens: not only are the children clearly being groomed for an obscure mission, but their lives are also marked by other inexplicable rituals and processes, apparently designed to cut them off from the outside world.

On a cursory read, Ishiguro's novel could be seen simply as an unusual piece of nightmarish science fiction blended with an evocative reworking of the traditional boarding-school story. The deceptively plain - at times even bland - tone and style of Kathy's narration reinforce the idea that one is reading the jeu d'esprit of an exceptionally talented novelist, an exercise in manipulating form and content. But Never Let Me Go packs an emotional punch that is hard to resist. Achieved through the combination of barely articulated horror and stoical acceptance, it leaves one feeling that Ishiguro has confronted nothing less than human beings' ability to deal with their own mortality.

In a beautifully sketched moment, the three friends make a journey to see an abandoned boat, run aground in some marshes. It is simultaneously an emblem of entrapment and of the possibility of escape; but it occurs to none of them to pursue the latter option. 'At least we've seen it now,' says Tommy, with a poignancy that typifies this wonderfully understated novel.

Future imperfect - Kazuo Ishiguro explains how a radio discussion helped fill in the missing pieces of Never Let Me Go...

About the Author

Kazuo Ishiguro is the author of six novels, A Pale View of Hills (1982, Winifred Holtby Prize), An Artist of the Floating World (1986, Whitbread Book of the Year Award, Primio Scanno, shortlisted for the Booker Prize), The Remains of the Day (1989, winner of the Booker Prize), The Unconsoled (1995, winner of the Cheltenham Prize), When We Were Orphans (2000, shortlisted for the Booker Prize) and Never Let Me Go (2005, shortlisted for the MAN Booker Prize).

He received an OBE for Services to Literature in 1995, and the French decoration of Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1998.

As Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro's unsettling story of a community of clones, comes to cinema screens, Rachel Cusk finds herself both intrigued and repelled by the novel...

Andrew Garfield and Mark Romanek on Never Let Me Go's existential questions

The star and director talk Japanese cinema, the dangers of praise and the challenges of bringing Kazuo Ishiguro's bestselling novel to the screen: