Patrick Modiano is a 69-year old French novelist and the author of "Lacombe Lucien." He recently won The Swedish Academy award for the Nobel Prize in Literature this 2014. The Guardian reported that he is the thirteenth French writer to win the award.
Previously, Modiano also had won the Austrian State Prize for European Literature in 2012 and the Prix Mondial Cino Del Duca from the Institut de France for his lifetime achievement in 2010. His other awards include the Prix Goncourt in 1978 for his novel "Rue Des Boutiques Obscures" and the Grand Prix Ru Roman de L'Académie Française in 1972 for "Les Boulevards de Ceinture."
Modiano, who is the author of Missing Person and of the screenplay for "Lacombe Lucien," has surpassed the competitive field for the Nobel Prize in Literature award that included Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Japanese author Haruki Murakami, Belarusian investigative journalist and author Svetlana Alexievich, and Syrian poet Adonis.
According to The Telegraph UK, Mondiano's screenplay for "Lacombe Lucien" - a film by Louis Malle, had won the Oscar Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1975.
The Swedish Academy, which selects Nobel Prize in Literature winners, cited Modiano for "the art of memory with which he has evoked the most ungraspable human destinies and uncovered the life-world of the occupation."
"Actually, I never thought of doing anything else. I had no diploma, no definite goal to achieve. But it is tough for a young writer to begin so early. Really, I prefer not to read my early books. Not that I don't like them, but I don't recognize myself anymore, like an old actor watching himself as a young leading man," the esteemed writer said of his literary career to France Today in 2011.
In 2000, Modiano was a member of the jury at the Cannes Film Festival. He has also written children's books, including Catherine Certitude. French President Francois Hollande cordially praised the Nobel Prize in Literature winner, saying that the Swedish Academy distinguishes a substantial literary creation which discovers the memory's subtleties and the identity's complexity.
Last year, the Nobel Prize in Literature Award winner was Canadian writer Alice Munro, who was described by the Academy as a "master of the contemporary short story." Other awards winners were Mo Yan of China in 2012; Thomas Transtomer of Sweden in 2011; Mario Vargas Llosa of Peru in 2010; Herta Mueller of Germany in 2009; Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio of France in 2008, Doris Lessing of Britain in 2007; Orhan Pamuk of Turkey in 2006; Harold Pinter of Britain in 2005; Elfriede Jelinek of Austria in 2004; J.M. Coetzee of South Africa in 2003; Imre Kertesz og Hungary in 2002 and Trinidad-born Briton, V.S. Naipaul in 2001.
This 2014, the Academy once again overlooked American authors Philip Roth and Thomas Pynchon for the biggest prize in literature. Aside from his 2014 Nobel Prize in Literature recognition, winner Patrick Modiano also receives an eight million kronor or £693,000 cash prize.
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