WHEN WE WERE ORPHANS, by Kazuo Ishiguro

Ishiguro, the Japanese-British popular writer, become well-known after his book Remains of the Day won the Booker Prize and was later made into a movie. In When We Were Orphans, he crafts an interesting book that explores a search for identity in the guise of a detective novel. The book starts with the detective narrator, Christopher Banks, returning to Shanghai, where he had grown up in the 1930s, to cover a case. It turns out that he had been sent "back" to England at a young age because his parents had both disappeared "without a trace." The novel shifts into Banks' search for the circumstances of his parents disappearance and indeed, his parent's very identities, as well as his own. The chronology of the story is complex as it shifts back and forth in time and plays on the constructive nature of memory and consciousness. It's a very well written, interesting book.

Click here to read a review of the book by NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/books/00/09/24/reviews/000924.24gorra2t.html