Kazuo Ishiguro 's mother was in Nagasaki when the atomic bomb was dropped.

When Ishiguro, the Nobel laureate and author of "Remains of the Day" and "Never Let Me Go," first undertook fiction writing in his 20s, his first novel, 1982's "A Pale View of Hills" was inspired by his mother's stories, and his own distance from them. Ishiguro was born in Nagasaki but, when he was 5, moved to England with his family.

"A Pale View of Hills" marked the start to what's become one of the most lauded writing careers in contemporary literature. And, now, like most of Ishiguro's other novels, it's a movie, too.

Kei Ishikawa's film by the same name premiered Thursday at the Cannes Film Festival in its Un Certain Regard section. The 70-year-old author has been here before; he was a member of the jury in 1994 that gave "Pulp Fiction" the Palme d'Or. "At the time it was a surprise decision," he says. "A lot of people booed."

Ishiguro is a movie watcher and sometimes maker, too. He penned the 2022 Akira Kurosawa adaptation "Living." Movies are a regular presence in his life, in part because filmmakers keep wanting to turn his books into them. Taika Waititi is currently finishing a film of Ishiguro's most recent novel, "Klara and the Sun" (2021).

Ishiguro likes to participate in early development of an adaptation, and then disappear, letting the filmmaker take over. Seeing "A Pale View of Hills" turned into an elegant, thoughtful drama is especially meaningful to him because the book, itself, deals with inheritance, and because it represents his beginning as a writer.

"There was no sense that anyone else was going to reread this thing," he says. "So in that sense, it's different to, say, the movie of 'Remains of the Day' or the movie of 'Never... Read More