Never Let Me Go is a speculative fiction novel. Technically the work is set in twentieth-century England, but it's a very different twentieth century than the one we are familiar with. The novel imagines a world in which great strides were made in genetic engineering, rather than nuclear weaponry, after World War II. Its narrator is 31-year-old Kathy H., whose life has been shaped by this one change in history, from her idyllic boarding school childhood to her adult life as a "carer."
The novel utilizes some science-fictional mechanisms, but in a subtle and understated way. Ishiguro has said that the novel is an examination of mortality: “My theme is very simple, and I...
