By, Nathalie Rothschild
1 min read
ByNathalie Rothschild, Nathalie Rothschild
The writer who won the 2014 Nobel Prize in Literature, Patrick Modiano, has been hailed as the man who helped France face up to its dark past of collaboration with the Nazis.
Denis Cosnard, a Le Monde journalist who has written a book about Mr Modiano's work, said that the author "tore apart the myth of a France that had supposedly been entirely on the side of resistance".
Mr Cosnard said that the author of La Place de l'étoile (1968), about life in occupied France, was "fascinated by the 'collabos', French people working for the Nazis, and the 'French Gestapo'."
The Swedish Academy explained that Mr Modiano won the prize "for the art of memory with which he has evoked the most ungraspable human destinies and uncovered the life-world of the occupation".
Born on July 30, 1945 in Boulogne-Billancourt, a suburb of Paris, Mr Modiano's Italian-Jewish father, Albert, was a businessman who survived the war thanks to black market business deals with the Gestapo. His mother was a Belgian actress called Louisa Colpeyn.
His Italian-Jewish father did black market deals with the Gestapo
Mr Modiano was first brought up by his maternal grandparents who taught him Flemish, his first language. After that he spent many unhappy years at boarding school, his father having largely abandoned the family.
The Second World War and the horrors of the Holocaust feature in several of his works.
The title La Place de l'étoile ("Star Square"), was a reference both to the square around the Arc de Triomphe in Paris and the yellow star Jews were forced to wear.
Partly autobiographical, it tells the story of Raphaël Schlemilovitch, a French Jew born just after the war and haunted by images of the Nazi persecution.
Mr Modiano also wrote the script for the 1974 feature film Lacombe Lucien, set during the Nazi occupation of France, together with film director Louis Malle.
It tells the story of a teenage farmer boy who starts collaborating with the Gestapo before falling in love with a Jewish girl.
The writer's 1997 novel Dora Bruder is based on the true story of a 15-year-old girl in Paris who became a victim of the Holocaust.
Mr Modiano, 69, is the 15th Frenchman to win the £700,000 prize.