The Neoliberal Impasse

Economy in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go

Bibliographic Data

ID21534073
AuthorsAmirhossein Nemati Ziarati (University of Isfahan Isfahan Iran (Islamic Republic of)), Hossein Pirnajmuddin (0000-0001-8349-2626, University of Isfahan Isfahan Iran (Islamic Republic of)), Pyeaam Abbasi (0000-0002-4264-5873, University of Isfahan Isfahan Iran (Islamic Republic of))
Year2025
Volume143
Issue3
Pages540-559
Publication date2025-09-09
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueAnglia - Zeitschrift für englische Philologie (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0340-5222 • E-ISSN: 1865-8938
PublisherWalter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1515/ang-2025-0039
LanguageEN
References cited15

This article offers a reading of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go in terms of economy. Drawing on insights from the New Economic Criticism, we situate this novel within a neoliberal and biopolitical context to illustrate the many ways in which the clones’ emotional and mental states interplay with a larger neoliberal economic system that ruthlessly commodifies and exploits them. We argue that the economy of affect in Ishiguro’s novel partakes of a certain ambivalence ultimately originating in contradictions and mystifications of capitalism. We refer to Giorgio Agamben, Franco Berardi, and Mark Fisher to explore the subtle intersections between Ishiguro’s novel and the broader socioeconomic paradigms. Another seminal issue we look into in this regard is how mental health issues are depoliticized to further conceal the insidiousness of economic exploitation. We also discuss how aesthetic issues in Ishiguro’s novel bear on its critique of neoliberalism. We hope that our economically-informed reading will contribute to understanding Ishiguro’s subtle socioeconomic critique of neoliberal capitalism and how readers are engaged to think beyond the neoliberal impasse, hauntingly bodied forth by the writer, as a crucial step towards overcoming it

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