The Remains of the Day

About

Stevens, the butler of Darlington Hall, takes a motoring trip through the English countryside and uses the drive to reflect on his decades of service — the great dinners he oversaw, the visiting dignitaries he managed, and the housekeeper, Miss Kenton, whose warmth he systematically deflected in the name of professional dignity. What emerges is a portrait of a man who perfected service at the cost of everything else. Ishiguro's Booker Prize-winning novel is a masterclass in unreliable narration: Stevens's formal, evasive prose reveals exactly what he's trying to hide, and the gap between what he says and what the reader understands is where the entire emotional weight of the novel lives. A book about the life you didn't live — told by a man who chose duty over love and is only now beginning to suspect what that cost.

Awards

• ★Booker Prize(1989 - Winner)