Patrick Modiano, a French novelist whose works evoke “the most ungraspable human destinies”, has been awarded the 2014 Nobel Prize in Literature, the New York Times reports. His works often explore the horrors of the Nazi occupation of France. The Nobel Prize for Literature is not awarded for a single work, but for a lifetime of achievements.
Modiano is the descendant of a Parisian father of Jewish origin, Albert Modiano, and Flemish actress Louisa Colpijn, who have met in the Nazi-occupied Paris during World War II. His father was absent for a long time, and his mother has often left for tours, so he got very attached to his brother, Rudy, who passed away at the age of 10. His works written between 1967 and 1982 are dedicated to him. His first book – La Place de l’Étoile – was published in 1968. It was a novel about a Jewish collaborator, and it probably touched a sensitive spot, as his father was so upset by it that he tried to buy all existing copies of the book. The same novel, translated in German, has won Modiano the Prize of the Southwest Radio Best-of List. Modiano’s works are very popular in France, partly because of their expressive and compact style – his novels are rarely longer than 200 pages.
[ads2]
French president Francois Hollande has congratulated the novelist for receiving the Nobel Prize in Literature, considering that the prize recognizes “a considerable body of work which explores subtleties of memory and complexity of identity”. The president has expressed the pride of the republic of the recognition of one of the nation’s greatest writers. Patrick Modiano is the 15th French author to be recognized with a Nobel prize in literature – the list includes authors like André Gide, Anatole France, Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre and Claude Simon.