Renowned novelist Sir Kazuo Ishiguro is to be presented with the Bodley Medal, the Bodleian Library's highest honour.

Sir Kazuo, the author of Booker Prize-winning The Remains of the Day will receive the award at the FT Weekend Oxford Literary Festival on 3 April 2019, when he will deliver the annual Bodley Lecture.

The award-winning novelist is also a screenwriter, short story writer and songwriter.

A Bodleian Library spokeswoman said: "He is widely considered one of the greatest contemporary fiction authors in the English-speaking world."

Sir Kazuo was born in Nagasaki, Japan, in 1954 and moved to Britain at the age of five.

His eight works of fiction have earned him many awards and honours around the world, including the Nobel Prize in Literature (2017) and the Booker Prize (1989).

His work has been translated into more than 50 languages. His novels The Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go were made into acclaimed movies.

The author was given a Knighthood for Services to Literature in 2018, and also holds the French decoration, Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, and the Japanese decoration, Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Star.

The Bodley Medal is awarded by the Bodleian to individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the worlds in which the Bodleian is active including literature, culture, science and communication.

Past winners include biographer Claire Tomalin, novelist and screenwriter William Boyd, classicist Mary Beard, physicist Stephen Hawking, film director Nicholas Hytner, novelist Hilary Mantel, the late poet Seamus Heaney, writer and actor Alan Bennett and inventor of the World Wide Web Sir Tim Berners-Lee.

Sir Kazuo will appear in conversation with Richard Ovenden, Bodley’s Librarian, at 6 pm. on April 3 at the Sheldonian Theatre as part of the Oxford Literary Festival. Following the event, Mr Ovenden will present him with the Bodley Medal.

The Bodleian is a cultural partner of the literary festival, which runs from Saturday, March 30 to Sunday, April 7 2019.

Author events will take place at the Bodleian’s Weston Library and Divinity School as well as at venues across the city.

For more information, and to book tickets for the Bodley Lecture, visit the FT Weekend Oxford Literary Festival website at oxfordliteraryfestival.org