Japanese-born British novelist Kazuo Ishiguro, the winner of this year's Nobel Prize in literature, has spent his career weaving layers of memory into stories that have moved readers around the world.

In a 2015 interview with Kyodo News while on a visit to Japan, Ishiguro, now 62, said he started writing novels to preserve what he remembered of the country he had left behind as a young child.

Born in Nagasaki in 1954, Ishiguro emigrated to Britain aged 5 with his family due to his father's work.

Addressing a press conference on a trip to Japan in 1989, he said his long absence may have been fueled by a fear that visiting the real Japan could destroy his idealized memories, effectively making him homeless.

The Japan he remembered reappeared to him at 11, when he watched a broadcast of director Yasujiro Ozu's "Tokyo Story" on British television, but by his mid-20s it had started to fade from his mind, prompting him to pick up the pen.

His first novel, "A Pale View of Hills" (1982), dealt with Japanese migrants in Britain reminiscing about their lives, while "An Artist of the Floating World," published in 1986, looked into the memories of a painter in postwar Japan.

The idea of memory has remained a constant theme in Ishiguro's subsequent works.

"The Remains of the Day," which earned him the 1989 Booker Prize, follows a butler recalling his time in the service of an aristocratic family in the years leading up to World War II. It was adapted into an Academy Award-nominated film in 1993.

Ishiguro's latest work, "The Buried Giant" (2015) goes beyond the scale of individuals to explore the idea of collective memory. It tells the story of a couple in post-Roman Britain recovering memories of their son as they journey in search of him.

London-based Ishiguro has said his work as a novelist is to communicate the emotions and sensations that people share with each other.

He is close to Japanese author Haruki Murakami -- himself long considered a contender for the Nobel literature prize -- and has praised the sadness and humor permeating Murakami's works.

In a 2011 collection of his essays and other works, Murakami said that "as a novelist, it is a great joy for me to have Kazuo Ishiguro as a contemporary."

Chronology of major events related to Ishiguro

Nov. 8, 1954 -- Born in Nagasaki, southwestern Japan.

1960 -- Moves to Britain with his family at the age of 5.

1978 -- Graduates in English and Philosophy from the University of Kent.

1982-1986 -- Publishes his first book "A Pale View of Hills" and subsequent novel "An Artist of the Floating World," with both taking place in Nagasaki shortly after World War II.

1989 -- "The Remains of the Day," which went on to be adapted into film with Anthony Hopkins playing the main character, wins the Booker Prize.

1995 -- Receives the Order of the British Empire for services to literature.

1998 -- Awarded the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government.

2005 -- Publishes dystopian science fiction novel "Never Let Me Go."

2009 -- Publishes "Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall," a collection of short stories.

2015 -- Publishes novel "The Buried Giant."

2017 -- Wins the Nobel Prize for literature.