VOA慢速英语--英国作家石黑浩(Kazuo Ishiguro)获得诺贝尔文学奖

English Writer Kazuo Ishiguro Wins Nobel Prize in Literature

Kazuo Ishiguro, the Japanese-born English writer, has won the 2017 Nobel Prize in Literature.

The Swedish Academy¹ made the announcement Thursday in Stockholm.

Sara Danius, the academy’s secretary, praised the work of Ishiguro. She said, “He’s a very interesting writer in many ways.”

“If you mix Jane Austen and Franz Kafka, then you have Ishiguro in a nutshell.”

Danius described him as “one of the most exquisite² novelists in our time.”

His best-known work is “The Remains³ of the Day,” which was published in 1989. It tells of a man who worked as a butler, the main male servant in the home of a rich person. He looks back on a life in service to the wealthy. The book deepens⁴ into a darker story of the repressed emotional⁵ and social environment of 20th-century England.

The work earned Ishiguro the Man Booker Prize in 1989.

The 1993 film version⁶ of “The Remains of the Day” starred Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson. It was nominated⁷ for eight Academy Awards.

The choice of Ishiguro for the Nobel Prize marked a return to traditional literature following two years of unconventional choices by the Swedish Academy. Last year, the literature prize went to American singer and songwriter Bob Dylan. In 2015, it went to Svetlana Alexievich of Belarus, an investigative journalist.

Ishiguro was born in Nagasaki, Japan. He moved with his family to Britain when he was five years old.

Although he did not return to Japan until he was in his 30s, Japanese characters were important in his first two novels: “A Pale View of Hills” and “An Artist of the Floating World.”

The writer will receive $1.1 million in prize money for winning the literature award.

I’m Jonathan Evans.

Words in This Story

exquisite - adj. finely done or made

unconventional - adj. very different from the things that are used or accepted by most people : not traditional or usual

butler - n. the main male servant in the home of a wealthy person

journalist - n. a person who has the job of collecting, writing, and editing news stories for newspapers, magazines, television, or radio

1 academy   

n.(高等)专科院校；学术社团，协会，研究院

参考例句：

• This is an academy of music.这是一所音乐专科学院。
• I visited Chinese Academy of Sciences yesterday.我昨天去访问了中国科学院。

2 exquisite   

adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的

参考例句：

• I was admiring the exquisite workmanship in the mosaic.我当时正在欣赏镶嵌画的精致做工。
• I still remember the exquisite pleasure I experienced in Bali.我依然记得在巴厘岛所经历的那种剧烈的快感。

3 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

4 deepens   

v.变深，加深( deepen的第三人称单数 )；加浓

参考例句：

• Wine deepens on aging. 酒久藏而变醇。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• \"The sand-sea deepens with fathomless ice, And darkness masses its endless clouds;\" 瀚海阑干百丈冰，愁云黪淡万里凝。 来自英汉 - 翻译样例 - 文学

5 emotional   

adj.令人动情的；易动感情的；感情(上)的

参考例句：

• Emotional people don't stop to calculate.感情容易冲动的人做事往往不加考虑。
• This is an emotional scene in the play.这是剧中动人的一幕。

6 version   

n.版本；型号；叙述，说法

参考例句：

• His version of the events is pure supposition.他对这件事的说法纯属猜测。
• What is your version of this matter?你对这件事情的看法 怎么样？

7 nominated   

adj.被提名的，被任命的 动词nominate的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• She has been nominated for the presidency. 她已经获得了董事长职位的提名。
• The movie was nominated for an Oscar. 这部电影获奥斯卡金像奖提名。