Kazuo Ishiguro Speaks at Spring Public Lecture Series

2010 Spring / Spring inspireCanterbury Christ Church Magazine International author Kazuo Ishiguro speaks at spring public lecture series Broadstairs Campus Celebrates its 10th anniversary St Gregory’s Music Centre underway Welcome to our first edition of Inspire, the new Canterbury Christ Church University magazine Inspire aims to keep staff, partners renowned author Kazuo Ishiguro, and friends in touch with what is who recently visited Christ Church happening here at Christ Church as part of our popular public lecture throughout our University network. series. You can also read more about We felt it was important to introduce the impact of our Broadstairs Campus a new and improved publication as it celebrates 10 years in the Isle of which reflects the breadth and Thanet, how plans for our St Gregory’s quality of the work of our staff and Centre for Music are taking off and students and their involvement with hear why newscaster John Suchet the wider community. This full-colour will be visiting us next month. magazine will be published three times a year, informing, challenging Whatever your interest or connection and hopefully entertaining readers with Christ Church University, we along the way. hope you enjoy what you read. Features in this edition include a Professor Michael Wright CBE DL conversation with internationally- Vice Chancellor Inspire magazine has been designed and produced by the Department of Marketing, Canterbury Christ Church University 02 inspire / Canterbury Christ Church Magazine CONTENTS 04 In conversation with Kazuo Ishiguro ..........................................04 One of the most celebrated authors of our time returns to Canterbury to speak with Andrew McGuinness from Canterbury Christ Church University. Bringing music to our ears ...........07 When the idea for a new University Centre for Music was conceived, the vision went far beyond the bricks and mortar. Broadstairs Campus celebrates its 10th anniversary ............................12 Having first opened its doors to 60 students in 2000, the Broadstairs Campus has grown in both reputation and facilities. 12 16 07 Funding the future .................................15 10 20 Augustine House and Christ Church Sports Centre ............16 The doors to both Augustine House Library and the Sports Centre have now been open for more than six months. Meet the team Q&A Business Focus ...........................................18 Perfecting performance .................... 10 John Suchet ...............................................20 Bringing you the latest news from our business teams. Interview with the team in the Sports and Renowned newscaster John Suchet Exercise Science Laboratories. launches his campaign at our Canterbury Campus for more Admiral Nurses to be Book Reviews ..............................................19 made available nationwide. Events ............................................................. 22 Spring / 2010 03 In conversation with Kazuo Ishiguro azuo Ishiguro, one of the most celebrated authors of our time, returned to Canterbury to speak with Andrew McGuinness, Lecturer K in Creative Writing here at Canterbury Christ Church University. His talk at Augustine House was part of our spring public lecture series, in partnership with Faber and Faber, to mark the publication of his most recent work, Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall. Four of his six novels have been nominated for the Booker Prize award, including his third novel The Remains of the Day, which was awarded the Booker Prize for Fiction in 1989 and was made into a successful film in 1993, with Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson. He has also worked as a writer of screenplays, the latest of which was Merchant Ivory’s The White Countess. The film is based on his Booker-shortlisted novel Never Let Me Go, starring Keira Knightley and Carey Mulligan, and is due for release in October 2010. 04 inspire / Canterbury Christ Church Magazine He was awarded the OBE in 1995 for “I haven’t been back here since 1990, “I lived in Whitstable for most of my time. services to literature and is a Fellow of the when I came to receive an Honorary It was a great place for a student to live. Royal Society of Literature. Doctorate at the Cathedral. I could see It had a thriving music culture and some then that a lot had changed since my time eccentric thespians, which made for a very Before Andrew McGuinness talked to him here in the mid 70s. I’m very interested to lively environment. I was very much into the about his works, we asked him how it felt to see all the ways in which Canterbury has folk music scene, writing and performing at come back to Canterbury, if he had been back changed further today. I have very fond the various folk clubs and imagined I would since graduating, his memories of the city and memories of my time in this area. be the next Bob Dylan. However, this was what he thought of the changes he found. not to be! I am quite glad of this now, as I realise that a musician’s life is quite hard.” “ I have very fond memories of my time in this area.” Photograph: Jason Dodd Jason Photograph: 'Bath of Knowledge', 2008 – Vanessa Mancini Mancini Vanessa – 2008 Knowledge', of 'Bath Spring / 2010 05 Andrew: It’s interesting that the setting Andrew: You have said before in interviews Kazuo Ishiguro and the history is one of the features of that the use of language is really important In conversation with your writing. when appealing to a wider, international Andrew McGuinness audience. Are there any dangers in authors Kazuo: I start with an almost abstract trying to write for international audiences? story that could be set almost anywhere. I start off by saying something like ‘I want Kazuo: Yes I think there are great dangers. to write a story about a guy whose loyalties However, I have found that in the last are completely misplaced’, now where 20 years, for writers like me and younger should I put this story? I do go location- generations, if you are published in any hunting through history to find a time significant way, you will be asked to talk and place that best serves my purposes. about your book to audiences who have An obvious danger is that you don’t just read it not only in translation but from use history, you abuse it. When I started their own cultural perspective. They will not to write in the 1980s, my generation of understand English in-jokes for instance. writers felt almost disadvantaged because we lived in a comfortable, politically stable Andrew: I would like to discuss the humour country that hadn’t really had a major war which comes across in your writing. You are for a long time. We felt compelled to travel known as a serious writer of literary fiction, in our imaginations, either geographically but in your most recent book Nocturnes or else to a time when things in Britain there is a great deal of humour to counter- were up for grabs much more, for instance balance the tragedy with the human experience. Is this a conscious decision to Andrew: I was going to ask you about during the world wars. do something new with comedy? music and songwriting. People might think that you had your first inklings of Andrew: A lot of that was re-imagined Kazuo: Well it’s not a general trend, but being a writer when you studied English at from memory too, was it not? You used a I did want to write short stories in between University, but actually it was writing music lot from memory as you left Nagasaki when the novels. I have always enjoyed the type and performing songs. you were five and a half. of humour that is almost impossible to separate from sadness and pathos, which Kazuo: Yes very much so. I arrived at the Kazuo: A lot of the motivation to write in people like Woody Allen at his best always University of Kent in 1974 and left in 1978 the first place was something to do with gets right. and back in those days writing didn’t seem exploring memory. I was always told I was a particularly exciting or sexy career at all going to return to Japan in a year or two Andrew: If there was another Kazuo in the same way that it seems to be to and so I didn’t actually adopt the attitude Ishiguro and he didn’t grow up to be a young people today. All the action seemed of an immigrant kid. I wanted to get my famous writer, what would he like to have to be happening in the fringe theatre in personal Japan down on paper so that it been? Based on some of the characters in London or television drama with people would always be safe and always exist. your book, would he have been an artist, a like Dennis Potter and the more literary end classical pianist, a private detective, a jazz of music was the singer/songwriter scene. Andrew: An interesting theme associated musician or a film director? A lot of us were trying to write songs in with your writing is that you are very much those days, including me. It really was my an international writer – your work is Kazuo: All these characters have first experience of trying to create anything. published in at least 40 other languages. But it was your third book set in England, something unresolved which they try I had no real ambitions at all to be a writer, and resolve through their vocation. I’m so songwriting served as my apprenticeship The Remains of the Day, which truly put you on an international stage not just particularly interested when they try very for becoming a fiction writer later on.

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