Klara and the Sun characters

Appears from the start

An Artificial Friend designed as a companion for a child. Exceptionally observant but inexperienced in human life, she studies people from a shop window and interprets what she sees by dividing it into visual fields. She believes sunlight gives her strength and comes to treat the Sun as a powerful, benevolent presence.

Appears from the start

A teenage girl in fragile health who visits the Artificial Friend store and promises to return for Klara. Intelligent, affectionate, and sometimes impatient, she has been genetically enhanced through a risky process intended to improve a child's educational prospects.

Also known as The Mother

Appears from the start

Josie's mother, a professionally successful woman carrying fear and grief beneath her controlled manner. She is protective of her ill daughter and evaluates Klara closely before buying her, expecting the Artificial Friend to observe Josie with unusual care.

Appears from the start

Klara's fellow Artificial Friend in the store. Cheerful and sociable, she shares Klara's early view of the street but does not examine human behavior with the same intensity. Their different ways of noticing the world help establish Klara's unusual powers of attention.

Appears from the start

The woman who runs the Artificial Friend store. Courteous and perceptive, she arranges the display positions, teaches the AFs how to behave with customers, and recognizes Klara's unusual observational ability without fully sharing Klara's conclusions about the world outside.

First appears in chapter 2

Josie's closest childhood friend and neighbor. Thoughtful and technically gifted, he has not undergone the enhancement chosen for many affluent children and is educated at home. He and Josie imagine a shared adult future, though their different social prospects place growing pressure on that bond.

Also known as Rick's mother

First appears in chapter 2

Rick's mother, who raises him outside the social system built around enhanced children. Anxious about his future and conscious of her own difficult reputation, she hopes his technical talent will win him an exception to the educational barriers facing him.

First appears in chapter 2

The housekeeper in Josie's home. Blunt and suspicious of machines, she calls Klara by a dismissive nickname and warns her not to obstruct the household. Her manner is harsh, but it is rooted partly in loyalty to Josie and fear of what Klara may be intended to do.

Also known as The Father

First appears in chapter 3

Josie's estranged father, an engineer who lost his position after being replaced in a technologically reorganized workplace. Warm toward Josie and more approachable than Chrissie, he is wary of the choices that have shaped their daughter's illness and now lives among people excluded from mainstream society.

First appears in chapter 3

A portrait artist engaged by Chrissie to study Josie. Cultivated and confident, he treats Klara's ability to learn a person as a technical question. His work at first appears to be an unusually exact three-dimensional portrait project.

First appears in chapter 3

Josie's older sister, who died before Klara joined the family. Her absence shapes Chrissie's fear of losing another child and hangs over the decisions made about Josie's health and future.

First appears in chapter 2

A boy from Josie's circle of enhanced children. Socially confident and dismissive toward Rick, he helps expose the competitive hierarchy surrounding children whose families have invested in biological and educational advantage.