Patrick Modiano (born 30 July 1945) is a French novelist and recipient of the 2014 Nobel Prize in Literature. He previously won the 2012 Austrian State Prize for European Literature, the 2010 Prix mondial Cino Del Ducafrom the Institut de France for lifetime achievement, the 1978 Prix Goncourt for Rue des boutiques obscures, and the 1972 Grand Prix du roman de l'Académie française for Les Boulevards de ceinture. His works have been translated into more than 30 languages and have been celebrated in and around France, but most of his novels had not been translated into English before he was awarded the Nobel Prize.
Jean Patrick Modiano was born in Boulogne-Billancourt, a commune in the western suburbs of Paris, France, on July 30, 1945. His father, Albert Modiano (1912–77, born in Paris), was of Italian Jewish origin; on his paternal side he was descended from aSephardic family of Thessaloniki, Greece. His mother, Louisa Colpijn (1918-2015), was a Belgian (Flemish) actress also known as Louisa Colpeyn. Modiano's parents met in occupied Paris during World War II and began their relationship semi-clandestinely. His father had refused to wear the Yellow badge and did not turn himself in when Paris Jews were rounded up for deportation to Nazi concentration camps. He was picked up and narrowly missed being deported, after an intervention from a friend in 1943. During the war years Albert did business on the black market, hanging around with the Carlingue, the French Gestapo auxiliaries Its leaders were recruited from the underworld. Albert Modiano never clearly spoke of this period to his son before his death in 1977.
Patrick Modiano's childhood took place in a unique atmosphere. He was initially brought up by his maternal grandparents who taught him Flemish as his first language. The absence of his father, and frequently also of his mother, on tour, brought him closer to his brother, Rudy, who suddenly died of a disease at age 10 (Patrick Modiano dedicated his works from 1967 to 1982 to his brother). Recalling this tragic period in his famed memoir Un Pedigree (2005), Modiano said: "I couldn't write an autobiography, that's why I called it a 'pedigree': It's a book less on what I did than on what others, mainly my parents, did to me."
As a child, Modiano studied at the École du Montcel primary school in Jouy-en-Josas, at the Collège Saint-Joseph de Thônes in Haute-Savoie, and then at the Lycée Henri-IV high school in Paris. While he was at Henri-IV, he took geometry lessons from writer Raymond Queneau, who was a friend of Modiano's mother. He received his baccalauréat in Annecy in 1964. He was enrolled by his father in hypokhâgne against his will and soon stopped attending classes. In 1965, he enrolled at the Sorbonne in order to get a college deferment to draft, but did not get any degree.
In 1970, Modiano married Dominique Zehrfuss. In a 2003 interview with Elle, she said: "I have a catastrophic souvenir of the day of our marriage. It rained. A real nightmare. Our groomsmen were Queneau, who had mentored Patrick since his adolescence, and Malraux, a friend of my father. They started to argue about Dubuffet, and it was like we were watching a tennis match! That said, it would have been funny to have some photos, but the only person who had a camera forgot to bring the film. There is only one photo remaining of us, from behind and under an umbrella!" They had two daughters, Zina (1974) and Marie (1978).
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