Kazuo Ishiguro is an award winning British writer of Japanese descent. he has written many novels and won several awards. An Artist of the Floating World, published in 1986 was short listed for the Booker Prize and was rated one of the best 100 books ever written. It examines the nature of memory and denial and the interplay between the two in determining people's characters. Plot and Chacters here examines the storyline from a literary point of view as well as the characters and their roles giving insight to the reader as to why the novel stands alone.