When We Were Orphans

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize England, 1930s. Christopher Banks has become the country's most celebrated detective, his cases the talk of London society. Yet one unsolved crime has always haunted him: the mysterious disappearance of his parents, in old Shanghai, when he was a small boy. Moving between London and Shanghai of the interwar years, When We Were Orphans is a remarkable story of memory, intrigue and the need to return. 'You seldom read a novel that so convinces you it is extending the possibilities of fiction.' John Carey, Sunday Times 'Ishiguro is the best and most original novelist of his generation and When We Were Orphans could be by no other writer. It haunts the mind. It moves to tears.' Susan Hill, Mail on Sunday 'Discloses a writer not only near the height of his powers but in a league all of his own.' Boyd Tonkin, Independent

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize England, 1930s. Christopher Banks has become the country's most celebrated detective, his cases the talk of London society. Yet one unsolved crime has always haunted him: the mysterious disappearance of his parents, in old Shanghai, when he was a small boy. Moving between London and Shanghai of the interwar years, When We Were Orphans is a remarkable story of memory, intrigue and the need to return. 'You seldom read a novel that so convinces you it is extending the possibilities of fiction.' John Carey, Sunday Times 'Ishiguro is the best and most original novelist of his generation and When We Were Orphans could be by no other writer. It haunts the mind. It moves to tears.' Susan Hill, Mail on Sunday 'Discloses a writer not only near the height of his powers but in a league all of his own.' Boyd Tonkin, Independent

From the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature and author of the Booker Prize-winning novel The Remains of the Day comes this stunning work of soaring imagination. Born in early-twentieth-century Shanghai, Banks was orphaned at the age of nine after the separate disappearances of his parents. Now, more than twenty years later, he is a celebrated figure in London society; yet the investigative expertise that has garnered him fame has done little to illuminate the circumstances of his parents' alleged kidnappings. Banks travels to the seething, labyrinthine city of his memory in hopes of solving the mystery of his own, painful past, only to find that war is ravaging Shanghai beyond recognition-and that his own recollections are proving as difficult to trust as the people around him. Masterful, suspenseful and psychologically acute, When We Were Orphans offers a profound meditation on the shifting quality of memory, and the possibility of avenging one's past.

From the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature and author of the Booker Prize-winning novel The Remains of the Day comes this stunning work of soaring imagination. Born in early-twentieth-century Shanghai, Banks was orphaned at the age of nine after the separate disappearances of his parents. Now, more than twenty years later, he is a celebrated figure in London society; yet the investigative expertise that has garnered him fame has done little to illuminate the circumstances of his parents' alleged kidnappings. Banks travels to the seething, labyrinthine city of his memory in hopes of solving the mystery of his own, painful past, only to find that war is ravaging Shanghai beyond recognition-and that his own recollections are proving as difficult to trust as the people around him. Masterful, suspenseful and psychologically acute, When We Were Orphans offers a profound meditation on the shifting quality of memory, and the possibility of avenging one's past.