Patrick Modiano
Patrick Modiano
Jean Patrick Modiano, generally known as Patrick Modiano 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 Duca from 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...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth30 July 1945
CountryFrance
Because I find writing painful, I try to get it over with as fast as possible. But I write every day, or I lose the thread.
As a writer, one is always a little blind to what one writes.
For a long time, I've had a recurring dream - I dream I don't have to write any more, that I'm free. I'm not free, alas; I'm still clearing the same terrain, with the impression that it's never finished.
The more things remain obscure and mysterious, the more they interest me. I even try to find mystery in things that have none.
Something happens between a novel and its reader which is similar to the process of developing photographs, the way they did it before the digital age. The photograph, as it was printed in the darkroom, became visible bit by bit. As you read your way through a novel, the same chemical process takes place.
I quickly realised that it is difficult to get started when writing a novel. You have this dream of what you want to create, but it is like walking around a swimming pool and hesitating to jump in because the water is too cold.
Encourage aspiring writers to continue writing when things are going against them, when it feels hard. Explain the typical obstacles that occur, and encourage and reassure them to continue, never to give up.
I just have two daughters and a grandson. So not a big family.
On winning Literature Nobel Prize: I was actually in the street. Yes, I was in the street. It was my daughter who notified me.
But I am a patient man. I can wait for hours in the rain
For a long time - and this particular time with greater force than usual - summer has been a season that gives me a sense of emptiness and absence, and takes me back to the past.
My wife's a lot younger than me ... thirty years difference . . . You should never marry a woman a lot younger than you ... Never ...
Nice is a city of ghosts and specters, but I hope not to become one of them right away.
The doctor used to tell me that every person about to die becomes a music box playing the melody that best describes his life, his character, and his hopes. For some, it's a popular waltz; for others, a march.