Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

Preview

£0.00 for first 30 days

Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

When We Were Orphans

By: Kazuo Ishiguro
Narrated by: Michael Maloney
Try for £0.00

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £18.99

Buy Now for £18.99

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Summary

England, 1930s: Christopher Banks has become the country's most celebrated detective, his cases the talk of London society. Yet one unsolved crime has always haunted him: the mysterious disappearance of his parents, in old Shanghai, when he was a small boy.

Moving between London and Shanghai of the interwar years, When We Were Orphans is a remarkable story of memory, intrigue and the need to return.

©2014 Kazuo Ishiguro (P)2014 Faber & Faber
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Listeners also enjoyed...

The Turmoil cover art
Where All Light Tends to Go cover art
The Spire cover art
Keep the Aspidistra Flying cover art
Rain and Other Stories cover art
The Little Nugget cover art
Into the Wilderness cover art
Cold Hand in Mine cover art
The Orphan Master's Son cover art
This Tender Land cover art
The Crime at Black Dudley cover art
The Tuscan Child cover art
My Holiday in North Korea cover art

What listeners say about When We Were Orphans

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    678
  • 4 Stars
    555
  • 3 Stars
    301
  • 2 Stars
    85
  • 1 Stars
    28
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    960
  • 4 Stars
    390
  • 3 Stars
    123
  • 2 Stars
    26
  • 1 Stars
    6
Story
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    574
  • 4 Stars
    481
  • 3 Stars
    305
  • 2 Stars
    97
  • 1 Stars
    47

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

wonderful story, Shane about the editing

super sorry about with tight writing and excellent sympathetic and contemporary narration. however the publisher couldn't be bother to do a little editing so that the comments meant for the cd version ('end of disc ...') were erased. the book are expensive and owe who produce them should have more respect for their clients.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Enjoyable

Off centre and bizarre as usual from the author. But well written and well read. Mostly enjoyable and satisfying.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Strangely compelling and moving

Michael Maloney - great reader.

Characters are at first cold and unsympathetic but they grow on you.

Great sense of place and time.

A detective novel / thriller? Sort of. But much more.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

At times surreal like The Unconsoled

This was a gripping detective story. Although not as good as The Remains of the Day or The Unconsoled, this story too has surreal tones in the latter half where the protagonist's self centered fixation on a case gets the better of him and it seems the entire world around him is just falling into step. The denouement, when it comes, is a very clever resolution to a tension that is skillfully maintained throughout the story

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Could have been a little shorter

The idea for the story is pretty good. China before the WWII does not come up much.

Narrator is soo posh as to be annoying at times.

Abridged version might be better.

But glad I listened to it.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Gripping and yet ponderous

If you enjoy detail, and a journey through a book with no particular need for an outcome, then this is an enjoyable listen. The reading is unobtrusive, and it all evokes something of another world, peeling away the rose tinted spectacles of Empire.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

disappointing

For a detective style story this has few clues as to what is going on in the background until the big reveal. Mostly a pointless ramble. I don't really get it.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

difficult, haunting book extremely well read out

The wonderful thing about this book is the quality of its first-person narration, a man driven by childhood memories and old trauma. He is blind to the trauma and to how it prevents him from connecting with other people. He also doesn't see the racist worldview he has acquired due to growing up as one of the colonists in a colonial outpost. The narrative voice is masterful, and perfectly depicted by the reader. It can't be easy to depict someone as deeply misguided and annoying as the narrator without ever once hinting that you know he is a broken person.

That said, the story is difficult, frustrating, and thoroughly implausible. The narrator, being broken, cannot describe other people in any depth, so all of the characters feel like cardboard cutouts. The childhood memories are the most human ones, but the narrator's obsessions mean that he provides little adult understanding of them. The narrator is only interested in his own obsessions, being all but oblivious even to being near the front lines of a war, which is stunningly skilled writing but does not in this instance make a good story. I have read that Ishiguro considers this his weakest book, and I'm not surprised. If you are looking for your first Ishiguro novel, I recommend choosing a different one. He has written some amazing first-person narrators in other books. This one gives glimpses of the amazing things the author can do, but in the end it is detached and disturbing without really holding together.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Again one feels the need to race through

There is something gripping in Ishiguro's writing. Always a wanted trip to an unknown destination.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Excellent

Fantastic novel, very well read. Will be thinking about this book for some time to come.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful