Kazuo Ishiguro is an author fascinated with intimacy, connection, and more recently, technology, so it was somewhat fitting that he appeared in front of the Sydney Writers’ Festival audience last week via video chat.

On top of the buzz that always accompanies an audience at an event such as this, there was a kind of nervous energy that hung about the City Recital Hall during the session. The theme of the Sydney Writers’ Festival this year was ‘Within Reach’, and it was the first time Ishiguro had been in front of an audience, answering questions, for quite some time.