Kazuo Ishiguro, author of Remains of the Day, Never Let Me Go, and much more, went down in history alongside such great writers as Toni Morrison, Bob Dylan, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez as the winner of the 2017 Nobel Prize in Literature.

In short story book Nocturnes, he explores music and mystery in five stories that take place hundreds of miles apart, yet are oddly similar. His book, Never Let Me Go, is split into five parts, and has songs written by Ishiguro in each section of the book. His style is noted for blurring the lines of reality, particularly in The Buried Giant, his 2015 novel that many see as his best work. It’s widely agreed among literary critics that Ishiguro’s slow, beautiful writing takes the reader down a strange, almost drug-like path of fog and confusion. Then, finally, at the end, comes the resolve, or the light at the end of the tunnel when you return to real life.

“He has a long career, and he’s very well respected. He writes a wide variety of things. I read that he made a choice between being a songwriter and being a novelist,” said ICPL head of Adult Collections Maeve Clark. “He chose to be a novelist.”