In our digital age, Kazuo Ishiguro’s Nobel prize is a reminder that it is still novels
that ask the biggest questions
By Alice O’Keeffe
“Fiction can feel like a luxury in a world of nuclear and environmental threat, crumbling political and economic systems, and general chaos. But that is also precisely why proper, challenging reading is so important: to read a good novel is to spend a serious amount of time immersed in the consciousness of another person; to reach out across the barriers that separate us from one another. It is to take the time to cultivate the focus necessary to step back from the distractions of day-to-day life and think bigger. Surely we all need that now, more than ever.”
