British novelist Kazuo Ishiguro wins Nobel Literature Prize

Kazuo Ishiguro, the Japanese-born British novelist who in “The Remains of the Day,” ″Never Let Me Go” and other novels captured memory’s lasting pain and dangerous illusions in precise and elegant prose, won the Nobel Literature Prize.

The selection of the 62-year-old Ishiguro marked a return to citing fiction writers following two years of unconventional choices by the Swedish Academy for the 9-million-kronor ($1.1 million) prize. Friday’s selection also continues a recent trend of recognizing British authors born elsewhere — V.S. Naipaul, the 2001 winner, is from Trinidad and Tobago; the 2007 honoree, Doris Lessing, was a native of Iran who grew up in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe).

New Nobel literature prize winner transcends easy categories

With a reporter's eye and an artist's heart, Svetlana Alexievich writes of the catastrophes, upheaval and personal woes that have afflicted the Soviet Union and the troubled countries that succeeded it. Her writings, characterized by plain language and detail so visceral it's sometimes painful to read, won her this year's Nobel literature prize.

She is an unusual choice. The Swedish Academy, which picks the prestigious literature laureates, has only twice before bestowed the award on non-fiction — to Winston Churchill and Bertrand Russell — and had never honored journalistic work with a Nobel.