England, 1930s. Christopher Banks has become the country’s most celebrated detective, his cases the talk of London society. Yet one unsolved crime has always haunted him: the mysterious disappearance of his parents, in old Shanghai, when he was a small boy. Moving between London and Shanghai of the inter-war years, When We Were Orphans is a remarkable story of memory, intrigue and the need to return.

KAZUO ISHUGURO

Kazuo Ishiguro was born in Nagasaki, Japan, in 1954 and moved to Britain at the age of five. His nine works of fiction have earned him many honours around the world, including the Nobel Prize in Literature and the Booker Prize. His work has been translated into over fifty languages and The Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go, both made into acclaimed films, have each sold over a million copies in Faber editions. He received a knighthood in 2018 for Services to Literature. He also holds the decorations of Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres from France and the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Star from Japan. His latest novel, Klara and the Sun, was published in 2021.