Kazuo Ishiguro had to work a tough job to truly understand human nature
- Text by Huck HQ / D'Arcy Doran
- Photography by David Harrison

#26 – Kazuo Ishiguro
Before he was a Booker Prize-winning author, Kazuo Ishiguro was a social worker in a London homeless shelter. In his novels, including Never Let Me Go, The Remains of the Day and The Buried Giant, the truth lies in the gaps between what his narrators say and what they actually do. He tells how a tough job taught him about the extremes of human nature and helped shape him as a writer.
“At formative points in my growing up, I did social work. I worked in community development in Scotland for a short while and I worked with homeless people in London for two or three years. Those periods of experience did go into my first novels, but not in a direct way. I was never tempted to write about the homelessness scene in a realistic way. I felt a bit guilty about this, but I used to work in a homeless hostel in west London.”
“It was almost like a crash course in seeing the frailties of human beings and all the things that can actually destroy people. You saw a whole wide range of examples just paraded in front of you, one after the other. When you’re dealing with homeless people, they’re homeless for a huge variety of reasons and it can get a bit depressing. But when you’re young and slightly idealistic and naive, as I was then, there’s a kind of culpable detachment you have to these people. You think you’re going to be able to help them – they’re going to get better, they’re going to get better, it’s just a temporary thing. You end up seeing so many people in different stages of distress and their lives unravelling. You see people without their natural defences.”
This is just a short excerpt from Huck’s Fiftieth Special, a collection of fifty personal stories from fifty inspiring lives.
Grab a copy now to read all fifty stories in full. Subscribe to make sure you don’t miss another issue.
Latest on Huck

Meet the trans-led hairdressers providing London with gender-affirming trims
Open Out — Since being founded in 2011, the Hoxton salon has become a crucial space the city’s LGBTQ+ community. Hannah Bentley caught up with co-founder Greygory Vass to hear about its growth, breaking down barbering binaries, and the recent Supreme Court ruling.
Written by: Hannah Bentley

Gazan amputees secure Para-Cycling World Championships qualification
Gaza Sunbirds — Alaa al-Dali and Mohamed Asfour earned Palestine’s first-ever top-20 finish at the Para-Cycling World Cup in Belgium over the weekend.
Written by: Isaac Muk

New documentary revisits the radical history of UK free rave culture
Free Party: A Folk History — Directed by Aaron Trinder, it features first-hand stories from key crews including DiY, Spiral Tribe, Bedlam and Circus Warp, with public streaming available from May 30.
Written by: Isaac Muk

Rahim Fortune’s dreamlike vision of the Black American South
Reflections — In the Texas native’s debut solo show, he weaves familial history and documentary photography to challenge the region’s visual tropes.
Written by: Miss Rosen

Why Katy Perry’s space flight was one giant flop for mankind
Galactic girlbossing — In a widely-panned, 11-minute trip to the edge of the earth’s atmosphere, the ‘Women’s World’ singer joined an all-female space crew in an expensive vanity advert for Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin. Newsletter columnist Emma Garland explains its apocalypse indicating signs.
Written by: Emma Garland

Katie Goh: “I want people to engage with the politics of oranges”
Foreign Fruit — In her new book, the Edinburgh-based writer traces her personal history through the citrus fruit’s global spread, from a village in China to Californian groves. Angela Hui caught up with her to find out more.
Written by: Katie Goh