Jean Patrick Modiano is a French novelist and recipient of the 2012 Nobel Prize in literature. He has written more than two dozen novels, as well as children’s books and screenplays. Though his work was little known in the English literature world before the Nobel Prize, his work has now been translated into 30 different languages. His work centers on issues such as memory, oblivion, identity and guilt. Very often his books are based on the troubles and shameful period of the occupation during World War II during which his father was allegedly engaged in shady dealings. The city of Paris is often present in his books, describing the evolution of its streets, its habits and the people.
