Nobel Prize in Literature
French writer Patrick Modiano won the 2014 Nobel Prize for Literature for works that made him ‘a Marcel Proust of our time' with tales often set during the Nazi occupation of Paris during World War II.
Relatively unknown outside of France and a media recluse, Modiano's works have centred on memory, oblivion, identity and guilt. He has written novels, children's books and film scripts.
His first novel 'La Place de l'Etoile', published in 1968, remains probably his best known book and touched on many themes that he would return to throughout his career, including the fate of the Jews under the Nazis.
Little of his writing is available in English but his roughly 40 works include ‘A Trace of Malice', ‘Missing Person', and ‘Honeymoon'. His latest work is the novel ‘Pour que tu ne te perdes pas dans le quartier'.
Modiano, 69, was born in the Paris suburb of Boulogne-Billancourt in July 1945, several months after the official end of the Nazi occupation in late 1944.
His father was Jewish and his mother Flemish and non-Jewish. They met during the Occupation and that mixed heritage combined with moral questions about France's relations with Nazi forces have played an important role in his novels.