STOCKHOLM — Novelist Kazuo Ishiguro, best known for his book “The Remains of the Day,” has been awarded the 2017 Nobel Prize for Literature.

Born in Japan, Ishiguro now lives in Britain and writes in English. The Swedish Academy cited him for “novels of great emotional force, (he) has uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world.”

The choice of the 62-year-old British novelist Ishiguro marks a return to conventional literature after two consecutive years in which the prize went to non-traditional recipients – singer-songwriter Bob Dylan and Belarusian journalist Svetlana Alexievich.

“The Remains of the Day” was turned into a popular movie of the same title. His most recent novel is 2015’s “The Buried Giant,” about an elderly couple’s trip through an English landscape to meet a son they haven’t seen in years.

Haruki Murakami of Japan, whose works fuse the realistic and the fantastic, and Kenya’s Ngugi wa Thiong’o, whose political work forced him to leave for the United States, were also seen as top contenders for the $1.1 million prize.

In 2015, a rare Nobel Literature prize for a non-fiction writer went to Alexievich. Last year’s award to Bob Dylan sparked a debate about if popular song lyrics can legitimately be considered literature.

Alfred Nobel, the Swedish industrialist and inventor whose will established the prizes, said he wanted the literature award to honor “ideal” work, without defining the term.

This story will be updated.

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