When We Were Orphans by Kazuo Ishiguro: Summary and Reviews (2025)

Book Summary

An English boy born in early-twentieth-century Shanghai, is orphaned at age nine when his mother and father both vanish under suspicious circumstances. Sent to live in England, he grows up to become a renowned detective and, 20 years later, returns to Shanghai, where the Sino-Japanese War is raging.

Chapter One

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!

1. The function of memory is already a major component of the narrative in the opening pages of the book: Christopher is writing in 1930 about something that happened in 1923, and within that memory are the memories of even earlier events. And throughout the book, what Christopher does and does not recollect, is of great concern for him. How has Ishiguro used the vagaries of Christopher's memory to shape the novel? How does the narrative itself mimic the ways in which memory functions?
2. What role does Sarah Hemmings play in this early part of the novel as it relates to Christopher? What is behind her urgent need to meet Sir Cecil? What is it about Sarah that moves Christopher to tell her about his past when he had told no one else in ...

Media Reviews

The Times Literary Supplement - Joyce Carol Oates -

[W]ill linger in the mind as an often fascinating, imaginative work of surpassing intelligence and taste.

Kirkus

An eerie, oddly beautiful tale from the internationally acclaimed author revolves around an enigmatic ordeal essentially similar to that undergone in Ishiguro's The Unconsoled (1995). ..... Elegiac, meditative, ultimately emotionally devastating, and the purest expression yet of the author's obsessive theme the buried life unearthed by its contingent interconnection with the passions, secrets, and priorities of unignorable other lives.

Library Journal

Atmosphere, historical detail, suspense Ishiguro's new book has it all, and if the parts finally don't add up, the author should still be credited with providing another great read. He should also be credited with originality, for though he investigates the polarities of insider-outsider, English-foreign, as he has done before (e.g., The Remains of the Day, The Unconsoled), he is hardly writing the same book again and again. Here, Christopher Banks is an Englishman born in early 20th-century Shanghai whose parents disappear mysteriously when he is nine. He is escorted to England, grows up to be a famed detective, and returns to Shanghai, convinced that his parents are still alive and that he must find them. The reader is less convinced that Banks is a real detective and wonder how he can entertain the romantic notion that his parents have been held hostage in Shanghai for decades, but the truth behind their disappearance comes as a satisfying surprise. And the writing is just wonderful, at once rich and taut. More writers should take style lessons from Ishiguro.

Publishers Weekly

Despite some contrived events and a tendency to rework the characterizations and themes of his previous books, Ishiguro's latest novel triumphs.

Reader Reviews

Jason Williams

This is the best book ever. I think those words say it all. If I had to read again I would definetely read, without a doubt. It's worth reading it.

Janette Ireland

no depth
The style of sentence construction looked like Ishiguro was trying to put himself into the 1930's, what he was doing was a bad imitation. It was as if the whole book was written by the child character, who never grew up in terms of maturity of ... Read More

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