Kazuo Ishiguro, “who, in novels of enormous touching force, has opened the deep hole of our illusory sense of connection with the world”, has been awarded the 2017 Nobel Prize in Literature, the Swedish Academy announced.

Sixty four-year-old Ishiguro was born in Japan and his family moved to the United Kingdom when he was five. His most popular novel, The Remains of the Day (1989), was twisted into a great film with Anthony Hopkins as the butler Stevens.

Ishiguro has written eight books, as well as scripts for film and television. Weeks of gossip and buzz about the Academy’s selection for 2017 ended on October 5, when it’s permanent secretary Sara Danius announced the winner.

The Swedish Academy astounded the world in 2016 when it awarded the Nobel Literature Prize to U.S. A. rock star Bob Dylan.

The Academy is known for its cloak-and-dagger methods to put a stop to any leaks, resorting to code names for authors and fake book covers when reading in public.

The Academy has admired Ishiguro, the author of novels including The Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go, and his writing as “marked by a carefully reserved mode of expression, self-determining of whatever dealings are taking place”.

Ishiguro is the 114th winner, following the track of renowned names including Seamus Heaney, Toni Morrison, Mo Yan and Pablo Neruda.