Never Let Me Go
by Kazuo Ishiguro
Summary
Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy grow up together at an idyllic English boarding school called Hailsham, only gradually coming to understand that they are clones raised for the sole purpose of donating their organs before their lives are cut short. Ishiguro tells the devastating premise in a restrained, elegiac first person voice that mirrors his characters' own quiet, almost eerie acceptance of their fate. The novel is widely regarded as one of the most powerful works of speculative fiction of the twenty first century.
Historical Context & Significance
The novel was shortlisted for the Booker Prize but lost that year to John Banville's The Sea in what many critics called an upset victory over the heavily favored Ishiguro. Ishiguro later won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2017, an author level honor for his body of work rather than for this specific novel.