Patrick Modiano

Patrick Modiano is a French novelist born on July 30, 1945, in Boulogne-Billancourt, near Paris. Of Jewish-Italian descent on his father's side and Flemish on his mother's, Modiano grew up in a fractured family amid the aftermath of World War II, and his childhood was marked by his parents' frequent absence and an obsession with memory, identity, and the Nazi Occupation era—themes that permeate his autofiction works. He launched his literary career at twenty-two after mentorship from Raymond Queneau. Modiano's debut novel La Place de l'Étoile (1968) explored Jewish collaboration during the war. He gained international acclaim with the 2014 Nobel Prize in Literature, awarded 'for the art of memory with which he has evoked the most ungraspable human destinies.' Notable works include Rue des Boutiques Obscures (Missing Person, 1978, Prix Goncourt winner), Dora Bruder (1997), and Dans le café de la jeunesse perdue (2007). Over forty books delve into loss, amnesia, and Paris's shadowy past, blending autobiography and fiction.