Upon finishing a novel by Kazuo Ishiguro, awardee of the 2017 Nobel Prize in Literature, one often comes away with questions. Ishiguro’s main characters almost always find themselves at the center of an existential quandary, and at novel’s end their issues are unresolved, still haunting. “As a writer,” Ishiguro has said, “I’m more interested in what people tell themselves happened rather than what actually happened.” Similarly, the Sri Lankan-born Michael Ondaatje tackles themes of displacement, creating narratives that roam poetically: “Never again will a single story be told as though it were the only one.” In this podcast, two brilliant literary minds are in conversation, revealing some of their mysterious creative secrets. —E.C.