In anticipation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s upcoming novel The Buried Giant – his first in ten years – Bronte Coates ranks his previous novels from worst to best.

6. The Unconsoled

A dreamlike and surreal novel about three days in the life of famous pianist Ryder The Unconsoled is undoubtedly a challenging read. While some consider the novel a masterpiece (it’s arguably Ishiguro’s most ambitious work), it’s generally accepted as the author’s weakest – literary critic James Wood famously said it ‘invented its own category of badness’. For me, the novel feels on the brink of being something, but never managed to topple over into that realm before I put it aside (this is the only Ishiguro I didn’t finish!). If you’re interested in reading more, the Guardian are currently reading The Unconsoled for their book club and recently published an interesting mid-book update here.

5. When We Were Orphans

Ishiguro’s version of a detective story, When We Were Orphans has all the trappings of his work – an unreliable narrator, past trauma, shifting memories – but self-made detective Christopher Banks never quite came to life in the way Ishiguro’s other narrators do. And even though the structure is delicately and precisely crafted, this novel felt a little bit formulaic. This said, it was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, one of Ishiguro’s four nominations for this award! (The other novels nominated include An Artist of the Floating World, The Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go.)

4. An Artist of the Floating World

While I found it easy to rank the past two titles, I’ve struggled with the next two as they’re both wonderful. Set in Japan post-World War II, An Artist of the Floating World is narrated by Masuji Ono, an ageing painter who’s now retired. As a narrator, Ono is deeply hesitant and changeable. His ‘glory days’ as a painter supporting Japan’s war through ultra-nationalistic artworks, are now viewed in a very different light and Ono struggles to come to terms with this changing environment. A fellow fan of Ishiguro considers this novel his best and it’s easy to see why.

3. A Pale View of the Hill

Even though it’s one of the few to not be nominated for a major award, Isihguro’s debut release is a personal favourite: in the light of her daughter’s recent suicide, a Japanese widow (now living in England) reminiscences about her previous life in post-war Nagasaki. It nips An Artist of the Floating World in the bud simply because it’s such an impressive first novel. While there are times where I did fall out of the narrative and remember that I was reading A Novel, I tend to see this as one of Ishiguro’s more inventive works and I felt his his risks paid off more often then they didn’t.

2. The Remains of the Day

Of Ishiguro’s four Man Booker nominations, The Remains of the Day is the only one to win, and it is frequently considered his most accomplished novel. I’ve ranked it below the next novel but I can assure you it’s a very close second placing. I was brokenhearted by this story of Stevens, an ageing butler who’s dedicated his life to a cause which he later discovers, is not all that he’d imagined. This book is also the first novel of Ishiguro’s I ever read so it was my first experience of his astonishing ability to lull me into a strange state of passivity and then all of a sudden, without ever resorting to passionate or dramatic language, reveal an aspect of the story that’s been bubbling below the surface all along and just so happens to be utterly devastating. I was almost bored in the first part of Stevens’ story but within a few short sentences, I was suddenly overcome with an urge to cry and ended up finishing the rest of the book on the edge of my seat.

1. Never Let Me Go

Never Let Me Go is one of my all-time favourite books but unfortunately, it’s also the kind of novel where the less you know the better. Another story of an unreliable narrator looking back over their lives (are you sensing a theme here?) Kathy H is a carer coming to the end of a successful career and is thinking back over her time as a student at the seemingly-idyllic Hailsham. I’m a enthusiastic re-reader but this novel is one which I can’t re-read too often without destroying the magic of it. One scene in particular always makes me cry and just thinking on it now, I feel a little chilled. There’s a film adaptation of this book which is enjoyable enough, but it doesn’t convey the quiet power of this novel.

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