"It is possible to have a heroic life, even if it is a small one."

Kazuo Ishiguro is one of Britain's most decorated contemporary novelists. He has won both the Nobel and Booker prizes, among countless other awards, and was knighted for his services to literature in 2018. But even for him, an Oscar would have been a first. Earlier this year, Ishiguro was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for his work on Living, a remake of Kurosawa Akira's 1952 masterpiece Ikiru.