Ishiguro’s creative friendship

Kazuo Ishiguro has written screenplays, but baulks at adapting his own novels. Faber and Faber are publishing Alex Garland’s script for the film, Never Let Me Go, which went on general release last week. Ishiguro has written the introduction to the edition of his friend’s script. It is a quietly evocative meditation on friendship, creativity and collaboration. Here it is for readers of this blog:

Perhaps you’ve heard that the cafés of North-West London, especially in its leafier districts, are filled with writers in earnest discussion about their work. This of course is largely myth. As any local will testify, it is babies, not writers, who are to be found dominating any place that will serve a cappuccino, passionately exchanging views on their handlers, food, the latest milestone passed.

Though fully aware of this, Alex Garland and I, often together with novelist William Sutcliffe, have been trying for many years now to live the myth of those writers’ gatherings, battling valiantly against the superior vocal powers of our rival faction.