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Klara and the Sun: A novel Hardcover – March 2, 2021

by Kazuo Ishiguro (Author)

4.2 50,719 ratings

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NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • Once in a great while, a book comes along that changes our view of the world. This magnificent novel from the Nobel laureate and author of Never Let Me Go is “an intriguing take on how artificial intelligence might play a role in our futures ... a poignant meditation on love and loneliness” (The Associated Press). • AGOOD MORNING AMERICA Book Club Pick!

“What stays with you in ‘Klara and the Sun’ is the haunting narrative voice—a genuinely innocent, egoless perspective on the strange behavior of humans obsessed and wounded by power, status and fear.” —Booker Prize committee

Here is the story of Klara, an Artificial Friend with outstanding observational qualities, who, from her place in the store, watches carefully the behavior of those who come in to browse, and of those who pass on the street outside. She remains hopeful that a customer will soon choose her. Klara and the Sun is a thrilling book that offers a look at our changing world through the eyes of an unforgettable narrator, and one that explores the fundamental question: what does it mean to love?

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Popular Highlights in this book

What are popular highlights?

‘Yes. Until recently, I didn’t think that humans could choose loneliness. That there were sometimes forces more powerful than the wish to avoid loneliness.’
Highlighted by 4,239 Kindle readers
‘Sufficiently generous and liberal to be open to all students of high caliber, even some who haven’t benefited from genetic editing.’
Highlighted by 4,202 Kindle readers
‘Sometimes,’ she said, ‘at special moments like that, people feel a pain alongside their happiness. I’m glad you watch everything so carefully, Klara.’
Highlighted by 3,465 Kindle readers

From the Publisher

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

An Amazon Best Book of March 2021: When he was awarded the 2017 Nobel Prize, the committee noted how Ishiguro “uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world.” In this beautiful novel, Ishiguro presents an “Artificial Friend,” a robot girl with artificial intelligence designed as a playmate for real children. It is a simultaneously heartbreaking and heart-mending story about the abyss we may never cross. —Chris Schluep, Amazon Book Review

Review

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK • A BOOKER PRIZE NOMINEE • GOOD MORNING AMERICA Book Club Pick • ONE OF PRESIDENT OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR •ONE OF BILL GATES'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR •ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times, Time, NPR, Washington Post, Vogue, USA Today, Town & Country, The Guardian, Vulture, and more

“One of the most affecting and profound novels Ishiguro has written….I'll go for broke and call Klara and the Sun a masterpiece that will make you think about life, mortality, the saving grace of love: in short, the all of it.”
—Maureen Corrigan, NPR

“A delicate, haunting story, steeped in sorrow and hope.”
—Ron Charles, The Washington Post

“What stays with you in ‘Klara and the Sun’ is the haunting narrative voice—a genuinely innocent, egoless perspective on the strange behavior of humans obsessed and wounded by power, status and fear.” —Booker Prize committee

“It aspires to enchantment, or to put it another way, reenchantment, the restoration of magic to a disenchanted world. Ishiguro drapes realism like a thin cloth over a primordial cosmos. Every so often, the cloth slips, revealing the old gods, the terrible beasts, the warring forces of light and darkness.”
—Judith Shulevitz, The Atlantic

“Ishiguro’s prose is soft and quiet. It feels like the perfect book to curl up with on a Sunday afternoon. He allows the story to unfold slowly and organically, revealing enough on every page to continue piquing the reader’s curiosity. The novel is an intriguing take on how artificial intelligence might play a role in our futures...a poignant meditation on love and loneliness”
—Maggie Sprayregen, The Associated Press

“For four decades now, Ishiguro has written eloquently about the balancing act of remembering without succumbing irrevocably to the past. Memory and the accounting of memory, its burdens and its reconciliation, have been his subjects… Klara and the Sun complements [Ishiguro’s] brilliant vision…There’s no narrative instinct more essential, or more human.”
—The New York Times Book Review

“A prayer is a postcard asking for a favor, sent upward. Whether our postcards are read by anyone has become the searching doubt of Ishiguro’s recent novels, in which this master, so utterly unlike his peers, goes about creating his ordinary, strange, godless allegories.”
—James Wood, The New Yorker

“One of the joys of Ishiguro's novels is the way they recall and reframe each other, almost like the same stories told in different formats...Again and again, Ishiguro asks: What does it mean to be human? What does it mean to have a self? And how much of that self can and should we give to others?”
—NPR

“Moving and beautiful… an unequivocal return to form, a meditation in the subtlest shades on the subject of whether our species will be able to live with everything it has created… [A] feverish read, [a] one-sitter… Few writers who’ve ever lived have been able to create moods of transience, loss and existential self-doubt as Ishiguro has — not art about the feelings, but the feelings themselves.”
—The Los Angeles Times

“As with Ishiguro’s other works, the rich inner reflections of his protagonists offer big takeaways, and Klara’s quiet but astute observations of human nature land with profound gravity . . . This dazzling genre-bending work is a delight.”
—Publishers Weekly [starred review]

“A haunting fable of a lonely, moribund world that is entirely too plausible.”
—Kirkus Reviews [starred review]

Praise from the UK:

“There is something so steady and beautiful about the way Klara is always approaching connection, like a Zeno’s arrow of the heart. People will absolutely love this book, in part because it enacts the way we learn how to love. Klara and the Sun is wise like a child who decides, just for a little while, to love their doll. “What can children know about genuine love?” Klara asks. The answer, of course, is everything.”
—Anne Enright, The Guardian

“Flawless . . . This is a novel for fans of Never Let Me Go, with which it shares a DNA of emotional openness, the quality of letting us see ourselves from the outside, and a vision of humanity which — while not exactly optimistic — is tender, touching and true.”
—John Self, The Times

“With its hushed intensity of emotion, this fable about robot love and loneliness confirms Ishiguro as a master prose stylist.”
—Ian Thomson, The Evening Standard

“It is innocence that forms Ishiguro’s major subject, explored in novels at once familiar and strange, which only gradually display their true and devastating significance.”
—Jon Day, The Financial Times

“The novel is a masterpiece of great beauty, meticulous control and, as ever, clear, simple prose.”
—Bryan Appleyard, The Sunday Times

“A deft dystopian fable about the innocence of a robot that asks big questions about existence”
—The Financial Times

About the Author

KAZUO ISHIGURO was born in Nagasaki, Japan, in 1954 and moved to Britain at the age of five. His eight previous works of fiction have earned him many honors around the world, including the Nobel Prize in Literature and the Booker Prize. His work has been translated into over fifty languages, and The Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go, both made into acclaimed films, have each sold more than 2 million copies. He was given a knighthood in 2018 for Services to Literature. He also holds the decorations of Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres from France and the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Star from Japan.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

When we were new, Rosa and I were mid-store, on the magazines table side, and could see through more than half of the window. So we were able to watch the outside – the office workers hurrying by, the taxis, the runners, the tourists, Beggar Man and his dog, the lower part of the RPO Building. Once we were more settled, Manager allowed us to walk up to the front until we were right behind the window display, and then we could see how tall the RPO Building was. And if we were there at just the right time, we would see the Sun on his journey, crossing between the building tops from our side over to the RPO Building side.

When I was lucky enough to see him like that, I’d lean my face forward to take in as much of his nourishment as I could, and if Rosa was with me, I’d tell her to do the same. After a minute or two, we’d have to return to our positions, and when we were new, we used to worry that because we often couldn’t see the Sun from mid-store, we’d grow weaker and weaker. Boy AF Rex, who was alongside us then, told us there was nothing to worry about, that the Sun had ways of reaching us wherever we were. He pointed to the floorboards and said, ‘That’s the Sun’s pattern right there. If you’re worried, you can just touch it and get strong again.’

There were no customers when he said this, and Manager was busy arranging something up on the Red Shelves, and I didn’t want to disturb her by asking permission. So I gave Rosa a glance, and when she looked back blankly, I took two steps forward, crouched down and reached out both hands to the Sun’s pattern on the floor. But as soon as my fingers touched it, the pattern faded, and though I tried all I could – I patted the spot where it had been, and when that didn’t work, rubbed my hands over the floorboards – it wouldn’t come back. When I stood up again Boy AF Rex said:

‘Klara, that was greedy. You girl AFs are always so greedy.’

Even though I was new then, it occurred to me straight away it might not have been my fault; that the Sun had withdrawn his pattern by chance just when I’d been touching it. But Boy AF Rex’s face remained serious.

‘You took all the nourishment for yourself, Klara. Look, it’s gone almost dark.’

Sure enough the light inside the store had become very gloomy. Even outside on the sidewalk, the Tow-Away Zone sign on the lamp post looked gray and faint.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said to Rex, then turning to Rosa: ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to take it all myself.’

‘Because of you,’ Boy AF Rex said, ‘I’m going to become weak by evening.’

‘You’re making a joke,’ I said to him. ‘I know you are.’

‘I’m not making a joke. I could get sick right now. And what about those AFs rear-store? There’s already something not right with them. They’re bound to get worse now. You were greedy, Klara.’

‘I don’t believe you,’ I said, but I was no longer so sure. I looked at Rosa, but her expression was still blank.

‘I’m feeling sick already,’ Boy AF Rex said. And he sagged forward.

‘But you just said yourself. The Sun always has ways to reach us. You’re making a joke, I know you are.’

I managed in the end to convince myself Boy AF Rex was teasing me. But what I sensed that day was that I had, without meaning to, made Rex bring up something uncomfortable, something most AFs in the store preferred not to talk about. Then not long afterwards that thing happened to Boy AF Rex, which made me think that even if he had been joking that day, a part of him had been serious too.

It was a bright morning, and Rex was no longer beside us because Manager had moved him to the front alcove. Manager always said that every position was carefully conceived, and that we were as likely to be chosen when standing at one as at another. Even so, we all knew the gaze of a customer entering the store would fall first on the front alcove, and Rex was naturally pleased to get his turn there. We watched him from mid-store, standing with his chin raised, the Sun’s pattern all over him, and Rosa leaned over to me once to say, ‘Oh, he does look wonderful! He’s bound to find a home soon!’

On Rex’s third day in the front alcove, a girl came in with her mother. I wasn’t so good then at telling ages, but I remember estimating thirteen and a half for the girl, and I think now that was
correct. The mother was an office worker, and from her shoes and suit we could tell she was high-ranking. The girl went straight to Rex and stood in front of him, while the mother came wandering our way, glanced at us, then went on towards the rear, where two AFs were sitting on the Glass Table, swinging their legs freely as Manager had told them to do. At one point the mother called, but the girl ignored her and went on staring up at Rex’s face. Then the child reached out and ran a hand down Rex’s arm. Rex said nothing, of course, just smiled down at her and remained still, exactly as we’d been told to do when a customer showed special interest.

‘Look!’ Rosa whispered. ‘She’s going to choose him! She loves him. He’s so lucky!’ I nudged Rosa sharply to silence her, because we could easily be heard.

Now it was the girl who called to the mother, and then soon they were both standing in front of Boy AF Rex, looking him up and down, the girl sometimes reaching forward and touching him. The two conferred in soft voices, and I heard the girl say at one point, ‘But he’s perfect, Mom. He’s beautiful.’ Then a moment later, the child said, ‘Oh, but Mom, come on.’

Manager by this time had brought herself quietly behind them. Eventually the mother turned to Manager and asked:

‘Which model is this one?’

‘He’s a B2,’ Manager said. ‘Third series. For the right child, Rex will make a perfect companion. In particular, I feel he’ll encourage a conscientious and studious attitude in a young person.’

‘Well this young lady here could certainly do with that.’

‘Oh, Mother, he’s perfect.’

Then the mother said: ‘B2, third series. The ones with the solar absorption problems, right?’

She said it just like that, in front of Rex, her smile still on her face. Rex kept smiling too, but the child looked baffled and glanced from Rex to her mother.

‘It’s true,’ Manager said, ‘that the third series had a few minor issues at the start. But those reports were greatly exaggerated. In environments with normal levels of light, there’s no problem whatsoever.’

‘I’ve heard solar malabsorption can lead to further problems,’ the mother said. ‘Even behavioral ones.’

‘With respect, ma’am, series three models have brought immense happiness to many children. Unless you live in Alaska or down a mineshaft, you don’t need to worry.’

The mother went on looking at Rex. Then finally she shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, Caroline. I can see why you like him. But he’s not for us. We’ll find one for you that’s perfect.’

Rex went on smiling until after the customers had left, and even after that, showed no sign of being sad. But that’s when I remembered about him making that joke, and I was sure then that those questions about the Sun, about how much of his nourishment we could have, had been in Rex’s mind for some time.

Today, of course, I realize Rex wouldn’t have been the only one. But officially, it wasn’t an issue at all – every one of us had specifications that guaranteed we couldn’t be affected by factors such as our positioning within a room. Even so, an AF would feel himself growing lethargic after a few hours away from the Sun, and start to worry there was something wrong with him – that he had some fault unique to him and that if it became known, he’d never find a home.

That was one reason why we always thought so much about being in the window. Each of us had been promised our turn, and each of us longed for it to come. That was partly to do with what Manager called the ‘special honor’ of representing the store to the outside. Also, of course, whatever Manager said, we all knew we were more likely to be chosen while in the window. But the big thing, silently understood by us all, was the Sun and his nourishment. Rosa did once bring it up with me, in a whisper, a little while before our turn came around.

‘Klara, do you think once we’re in the window, we’ll receive so much goodness we’ll never get short again?’

I was still quite new then, so didn’t know how to answer, even though the same question had been in my mind.

Then our turn finally came, and Rosa and I stepped into the window one morning, making sure not to knock over any of the display the way the pair before us had done the previous week. The store, of course, had yet to open, and I thought the grid would be fully down. But once we’d seated ourselves on the Striped Sofa, I saw there was a narrow gap running along the bottom of the grid – Manager must have raised it a little when checking everything was ready for us – and the Sun’s light was making a bright rectangle that came up onto the platform and finished in a straight line just in front of us. We only needed to stretch our feet a little to place them within its warmth. I knew then that whatever the answer to Rosa’s question, we were about to get all the nourishment we would need for some time to come. And once Manager touched the switch and the grid climbed up all the way, we became covered in dazzling light.

I should confess here that for me, there’d always been another reason for wanting to be in the window which had nothing to do with the Sun’s nourishment or being chosen. Unlike most AFs, unlike Rosa, I’d always longed to see more of the outside – and to see it in all its detail. So once the grid went up, the realization that there was now only the glass between me and the sidewalk, that I was free to see, close up and whole, so many things I’d seen before only as corners and edges, made me so excited that for a moment I nearly forgot about the Sun and his kindness to us.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Knopf; First Edition, Third Printing (March 2, 2021)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 320 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 059331817X
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0593318171
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.4 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.47 x 1.18 x 9.52 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #21,465 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #76 in Metaphysical & Visionary Fiction (Books)
- #398 in Dystopian Fiction (Books)
- #2,106 in Literary Fiction (Books)

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KAZUO ISHIGURO was born in Nagasaki, Japan, in 1954 and moved to Britain at the age of five. His eight previous works of fiction have earned him many honors around the world, including the Nobel Prize in Literature and the Booker Prize. His work has been translated into over fifty languages, and The Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go, both made into acclaimed films, have each sold more than 2 million copies. He was given a knighthood in 2018 for Services to Literature. He also holds the decorations of Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres from France and the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Star from Japan.

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KEhresman

Can an Artificial Friend love and be loved?

Reviewed in the United States on May 8, 2024

Verified Purchase

Kazuo Ishiguro has fashioned a future world where children study at home, alone. (Wait - I think that was now, recently.) There are arranged meetings with groups of other children called “Interactions,” and some families buy an AF who is a companion to their child.
Klara is an exceptionally astute AF who is curious about things beyond the surface level. With Klara as our narrator and guide, Ishiguro explores ideas about love and belonging. How do we show love and loyalty? What is IT that we love in others? Can a nearly perfect facsimile step in when there is a loss? How do we protect each other? How and when do we let people “go?” Is there a higher power that can intercede when needed?
My thoughts keep returning to the book and these themes. Ishiguro writes books with staying power.

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Gary Moreau, Author

A style reminiscent of Eastern poetry

Reviewed in the United States on March 6, 2021

Verified Purchase

This is the first book I have read by Kazuo Ishiguro. And according to the professional reviewers one of his common themes is the exploration of what it means to be human, which love is a big part of. And this book certainly fits.

The narrator is a robot named Klara, an AF (artificial friend) meant to be a companion to a teenage girl named Josie. The story takes place in the future, of course, but that future is not very clearly defined. There is a reference to massive social upheaval caused by the advancement of AI, a predictable backlash from the humans who are disaffected, and the implication of anarchy. There is even a specific reference to fascism.

But the whole book is a series of references. The writing is very clean and you can read the book in a relatively short period of time. Definitely not a slog. But many questions go unanswered and vague is a defining characteristic. In many ways, in fact, both the writing style and the reliance on vague implication often made me think of Eastern poetry (I am a fan) in narrative form.

As other reviewers have noted, the book leaves you with an overall sense of sadness, but I would call it emptiness because it is more of a perspective than an emotion. It just is, which is largely the way Klara sees and experiences the world.

Having given it much thought over the years, it is very doubtful to me that artificial people will develop along the path that Klara is on. She is genuinely advanced in some areas but rudimentary in others. There is a whiff of consciousness. Klara picks up on innuendo and interprets her observations in ways suggestive of the most observant and sensitive of humans, but has a very limited knowledge of the larger world. She doesn’t, for example, understand the purpose of the simplest machines.

There is a great deal of ink devoted to how Klara sees the world. It often involves geometric shapes and the deception of angle, point of view, and lighting. That, however, is never fully linked to the main narrative.

The human characters are not developed in depth, more as a matter of style, I think, than oversight. And there are many storylines that are never quite filled in, again, I think, due to matters of style.

The mother presents the most complex and inscrutable character to me. We are often presented with somewhat lengthy narratives that are just left in total isolation. Often contradictory, these dialogues are never fully explained or again referenced as the narrative unfolds.

In the end, the author’s perspective on what it means to be human is vague, like the book itself. The basic question seems to be whether or not humans have an inexplicable dimension that will never be replicated artificially or are predictable in a way we may not yet understand, but which there is a knowable pattern to.

I, for one, believe it will be decades before robots are even remotely human. They will do amazing things and will learn much more than we can individually know. That, however, is where we live, not what we know and feel.

One of the reasons for that is that artificial intelligence is incapable of making mistakes. It can clearly be wrong and make terrible choices. That, however, is the fault of the person creating the artificial intelligence, not the intelligence itself. And that is exactly why we must be so careful in pursuing a future dominated by AI. Humans are more than capable of making mistakes, even ones that will ultimately destroy us.

In the end, I will probably buy another one of this author’s books. I will wait a while, however. I need to fully digest this one first. That, in the end, is my standard of a good book.

85 people found this helpful

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Ventura D

Unforgettable Story

Reviewed in the United States on April 6, 2024

Verified Purchase

This book is as haunting and memorable as Ishiguro's "Never Let Me Go." Klara is a humanoid robot designed to serve as a companion (Artificial Friend) for humans. Though obsolescent, it is she who is chosen by a young girl to be her companion. Klara also has an affinity for the Sun, whose light sustains her. I was intrigued when Klara began to invent a religion for herself, with the Sun as her god. Klara also has a deep commitment to her owner. Though not a human, Klara seems to invent the same sort of behaviors that we associate with human beings. Is this a commentary about what it means to be human?

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Regis

A Brighter Companion to Never Let Me Go

Reviewed in the United States on September 16, 2021

Verified Purchase

In an interview to Waterstones, Kazuo Ishiguro commented that the seed of Klara and the Sun was a story for a children's book he had in mind but that was too dark to be published as such (it would traumatize kids, his daughter warned him). That makes total sense to me. There is a delicate fairytale quality in this novel that permeates Klara's voice as the narrator. Not only because of its main theme but also the way the affective relationships are built (the way Chrissie and Josie, Josie and Klara, Chrissie and Klara and Klara and Ricky are bound), there is some significant thematic overlap with AI: Artificial Intelligence (more the Spielberg's part than Kubrick's) and, tangentially, Pinnochio_.

Even though the story of KS_ is told by a robot, this is a novel where the whole idea of humanity and human subjectivity is put at the center, and brought up with a very fresh look. It is a study about illness, love, tenderness, faith, all interpreted or acted upon by a being that is not human (or maybe, as the Tyrrell Corporation used to say, "more human than human"), but a very intelligent and sensitive one. Ishiguro says that having an AI as the narrator allowed him to explore all these human themes with a fresh look, making basic questions about humanity a human being would never ask. Indeed, the story told by a robot brings a very distinct flavor to the narrative. Everything is familiar, but at the same time seems strange through Klara's sometimes childish or naïve (however precise) descriptions of what she sees and witnesses. It is as if a very intelligent and sensitive alien came to Earth to observe us, with sharp eyes but no context.

KS also brought me good memories about Never Let Me Go, specially the kind of decency and tenderness that Ishiguro masterfully embeds into the action and reactions of his (mostly tragic) characters. There is a strangely self-contained, humble quality but tense underneath Ishiguro's writing which I'm personally fond of, and that also shows in Klara's narrative. There are also many thematic parallels, not only about human genetics, and genetic editing, but also in the way beings (be them clones or robots) are treated as things. Part of the genetic editing subplot in KS (concerning Josie's and Rick's differences) is actually suggested in NLMG when Miss Emily speaks about the Morningdale scandal, dr James Morningdale's offering the possibility of having children with enhanced characteristics. The parallel between Kathy being a carer in NLMG and Klara's looking after Josie in KS was particularly strong to me, more so in the second act. Ishiguro admits KS is in many ways a companion book to NLMG, but with a more positive resolution, a brighter response to the bleak, sad ending of his previous book. In NLMG, when Kathy and Tommy seek Madame Marie-Claude and Miss Emily of Hailsham to ask for a deferral of Tommy's donation because of their true love, we as the reader lose all hope. In KS Klara keeps her hope on the powers of the Sun with the devotion of a religious human being that contagiously keep us believing as well.

KS_ is a fairytale of the modern times, dealing, as any fairytale, with the anxieties of its era: machines taking the place of humans, substitutions, replacements, misplacements; how far can science go to remove any illusion of divinity or uniqueness of the human kind: Will AI prove that there is nothing special about us? The novel constantly raises questions about our own individuality: what if our professional career is suddenly terminated and all our experience and knowledge become suddenly obsolete? Does the meaning of our lives evaporate as well? What if everything that defines us as a human being can be reduced to a finite (however gigantic and complex) number of brain connections, like a finite number of rooms within rooms within rooms? Will we be able to store all this connections somewhere outside our brain or, worse, synthetically replicate it?

I confess I was a little abated by the final act, which seemed to me a little outplaced, if not ‘disposable’. But as I let the book settle, it now seems to me that the book ends with an interesting meta-image of Klara’s own condition. After listening to Ishiguro reinforcing the idea that Klara's main purpose as a commercial product is to reduce the tension of teenagers with loneliness, and that she is programmed to identify and treat human loneliness, her own aging and destiny gains a different color, especially because it mimics Klara's own surprise when she discovered that Rick's mother Helen was open to live alone if that would secure a better future for his son. Maybe it is Ishiguro’s Japanese blood speaking, with reminiscences of The Ballad of Narayama, or maybe it is just the emotional touch Ishiguro plays so well. In any event, this is a touching little story that, while not as impactful as NLMG, I will hold to heart.

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Karen Elizabeth Pereyra Havens

Great read, great writer.

Reviewed in Mexico on August 18, 2023

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Anyone who enjoys science fiction, will love it!

tomek

You should read it

Reviewed in Canada on January 18, 2023

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If you like how Kazuo Ishiguro bends ordinary life into a riveting narrative - this one is a must, much like the rest of this books. Read it, you will be happier for it.

Klara and the Sun is a thought-provoking novel that explores the relationship between humans and artificial intelligence. The story centers around Klara, an AI "artificial friend" designed for companionship. As Klara begins to develop consciousness, she grapples with the question of what it means to be alive. The novel raises important ethical questions about the treatment of AI and the blurred lines between humanity and technology. The writing is evocative and the story is well-crafted. Overall, Klara and the Sun is a thought-provoking read that will leave you questioning the nature of consciousness and the potential consequences of creating sentient machines.

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Daniel Swede

Dull and void of big i

Reviewed in Sweden on May 5, 2024

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I so wanted to enjoy this novel but in the end I found the characters unengaging and very little plot to speak of.

Kasis

Excellent comme d’habitude

Reviewed in France on March 10, 2024

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Avec cet auteur visionnaire. Un conte pour le XXè siècle un peu à la manière de Never let me go.

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helix

Weird and fascinating

Reviewed in Germany on November 1, 2023

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A strange kind of dystopian novel that only hints at the flaws in the society it portrays through the eyes of the "artificial friend" Klara, whose understanding of the world around her is partial and fragmented, limited by the constraints of her technology - and who is, in some ways, more human than the human characters she interacts with. Not an easy read but well worth it.

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