Klara and the Sun: Kazuo Ishiguro stays true to his vision in story told in glimpses

The Nobel laureate’s tale told by the android friend of a lonely child is an extraordinarily rich, compulsively readable masterpiece, writes Kevin Power

A deeply uneasy world: Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel reveals unsought confessions that disclose a painful history of grief, failed love and thwarted hope

Kevin Power

The cover of Kazuo Ishiguro’s new novel is a brilliant bit of graphic design: a smooth expanse of passionate red, into which a dark-green square has been pressed, suggesting a window. In the top right corner of this window sits the curve of an orange circle, suggesting the sun. It’s rare to come across a cover that illuminates so clearly the work of art within. Because Klara and the Sun is a novel about seeing things partially — a novel about perspectives, angles, glimpses. And it’s a novel about profound feeling (the sun; that passionate red).