INTRODUCTION 7: STORIES BY NEW WRITERS

First edition, first printing of Kazuo Ishiguro's first appearance in book form. Signed by the author. Original red cloth lettered in gilt to the spine, in dustwrapper. A near fine copy, the binding square and firm, the contents clean throughout. A few light spots to the upper edge of the page block. Spine tips a touch softened. In the bright, clean dustwrapper, with some light creasing to the inner front flap, which remains unclipped and priced £4.95 net. Uncommon in signed state.

Signed by Kazuo Ishiguro in black ink to the title page preceding his contributions. After graduating from the University of Kent in 1978, Ishiguro briefly worked in London as a social worker before joining the now famous MA writing program at the University of East Anglia in 1979. The three stories published in this Faber 'Introduction' volume were his first writings to be published in book form and, apart from the first story, 'A Strange and Sometimes Sadness', which appeared in the journal 'Bananas' the previous year, the first published anywhere. Two decades later, Ishiguro republished that first story with two others in a short volume entitled 'Early Japanese Stories' (London: Belmont Press, 2000), for which he provided a biographical introduction recalling the context in which his early stories were written. Of 'A Strange and Sometimes Sadness', he remembers that "it was only after considerable hesitation I began to show the story around, and I remain to this day profoundly grateful to my fellow students, to my tutors, Malcolm Bradbury and Angela Carter, and to the novelist Paul Bailey [...] for their determinedly encouraging response. Had they been less positive, I would probably never again have written about Japan. As it was, I returned to my room and wrote and wrote. Throughout the winter of '79–'80, and well into the spring, I spoke to virtually no-one aside from my fellow students, the village grocer from whom I'd buy the breakfast cereals and lamb kidneys on which I existed, and my girl-friend (today my wife) who'd come to visit me every second weekend." The other two Ishiguro stories in this Faber Introduction – 'Waiting For J' and 'Getting Poisoned' – have not been republished since. 'Introduction 7' was the seventh in a series established to publish new work by unpublished writers. First appearing in 1960, Tom Stoppard, Ted Hughes, Christopher Hampton, and Jim Crace are among writers first published in the series. In addition to the three Ishiguro stories, 'Introduction 7', includes stories by J. K. Klavans, Steven Kupfer, Tim Owens, and Amanda Hemingway.