6 - The Ishiguro Archive

Summary

This chapter is devoted to Ishiguro’s archive and aims to suggest ways in which our understanding of the author’s work can be developed and enhanced by an examination of his drafts, notes, plans and other documents. It first offers a brief description of the scope and contents of Ishiguro’s papers, which the author carefully selected, organized, and prepared before their transfer to the Harry Ransom Center. It then discusses his conscientious methods of composition as revealed by the archives and as presented by Ishiguro himself in an explanatory piece entitled ‘How I Write’: months or years of planning precede the first formal drafts, which are extensively revised or sometimes discarded altogether. As a case study, the chapter examines some of the ‘precursors’ to The Remains of the Day in order to show how access to the archives and preliminary steps to a published text may illuminate the complex process of creation.