Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Writers' indignation: Kazuo Ishiguro rejects claims of genre snobbery

The author has taken criticism for his treatment of the fantasy genre in his new novel, The Buried Giant, but says ‘I am on the side of the pixies and dragons’

‘She’s entitled to like my book or not like my book, but she’s got the wrong person,’ Kazuo Ishiguro said of Ursula K. Le Guin, who has attacked The Buried Giant’s use of genre.
‘She’s entitled to like my book or not like my book, but she’s got the wrong person,’ Kazuo Ishiguro said of Ursula K. Le Guin, who has attacked The Buried Giant’s use of genre. Photograph: Alicia Canter for the Guardian
Author Kazuo Ishiguro has hit back at accusations of genre-based snobbery surrounding his new novel The Buried Giant, which is set in a semi-mythical Britain inhabited by ogres, pixies and dragons.
At a Guardian event held at the Royal Institution in London on Sunday, Ishiguro said that veteran author Ursula K. Le Guin was “a little bit hasty in nominating me as the latest enemy for her own agenda,” after she had written a blog post accusing him of “despising” the fantasy genre.

“I think she wants me to be the new Margaret Atwood,” he said, referring to the criticism the Canadian author and poet has received from Le Guin for distinguishing her writing as “speculative fiction” and for saying science fiction was about “talking squids in outer space”. 
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