When We Were Orphans

England in den Dreißigerjahren. Christopher Banks ist ein erfolgreicher Detektiv, doch es gibt einen Fall, den er noch nicht lösen konnte, der ihn quält und bis in seine Träume verfolgt: das Rätsel um das Verschwinden seiner Eltern. Beide sind vor vielen Jahren in Shanghai gekidnappt worden, wo sie anscheinend in den illegalen Opiumhandel verstrickt waren. Kann es sein, dass Banks es nur deshalb zu derart grandioser kriminalistischer Meisterschaft gebracht hat, um endlich aufklären zu können, was damals mit seinen Eltern geschah?

*Kazuo Ishiguro's new novel Klara and the Sun is now available*

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize

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 interwar years, When We Were Orphans is a remarkable story of memory, intrigue and the need to return.

'You seldom read a novel that so convinces you it is extending the possibilities of fiction.' John Carey, Sunday Times

'Ishiguro is the best and most original novelist of his generation and When We Were Orphans could be by no other writer. It haunts the mind. It moves to tears.' Susan Hill, Mail on Sunday

'Discloses a writer not only near the height of his powers but in a league all of his own.' Boyd Tonkin, Independent