Modiano, 'modern-day Proust', wins Nobel Literature Prize(2)

'A bit unreal'

Published when he was just 22, in 1967, his first novel "La place de l'etoile" (The Star's Place), was a direct reference to that mark of shame inflicted on the Jews.

It was the first of many recreations of wartime Paris stuffed with meticulous detail -- street names, cafes, metro stations and real-life crime cases of the day -- earning him the moniker of literary archaeologist.

His novels are also full of enigma, and winks to the reader: a critic once counted five characters from five different novels who all shared the same telephone number.

Modiano's work is also haunted by his cold upbringing -- once leading him to joke that his mother's heart was so cold her lap-sized pet chow-chow leapt from a window to its death.

Englund said that in line with the Proust tradition, Modiano was "looking for times past, but he's doing it in his very, very, own way".

"This is not someone taking a bite of the madeleine cake and everything comes back to him," he told AFP, referring to the famous anecdote in Proust's "Remembrance of Things Past" when the protagonist bit into a tea-soaked cake which triggered a rush of childhood memories. "Quite the opposite, this is someone really struggling to reach contact with the past."

The eldest of two boys, Patrick Modiano spent long, unhappy periods in boarding school. His beloved brother Rudy died in 1957, when the author was still a boy, and he dedicated his early works to his memory.

At the age of 17, Modiano broke all ties with his father, who died 15 years later and who he took to task in several of his books.

Still a teenager, Modiano left school and began to write, by hand as he would continue to do throughout his life.

"I was not yet 20, but my memories date to before I was born," he has said.

'Cold heart'

While his childhood has been a rich source of material, the author says he is not given to wallowing or soul searching.

"I have nothing to confess, nothing to clear up and I have no need for self-examination," he once said.

"I write these pages as you would write a resume, or an accident report, like a documentary and probably to be done with a life that was not mine."

In 1972, Modiano was awarded the French Academy's Grand Prize for "Ring Roads", and the prestigious Goncourt Prize followed in 1978 for "Missing Person".

In 1996, he won the National Literature Grand Prize for his entire work. His latest book, "Pour que tu ne te perdes pas dans le quartier" (So you don't get lost in the neighbourhood) appeared this month.

Apart from a long series of books, in the early 1970s, Modiano co-wrote the screenplay for Lacombe Lucien, a movie directed by Louis Malle focusing on French collaboration with the Nazis.

Although translated into more than 30 languages, he is said to have trouble expressing himself in public and once refused a nomination to the elite Academie Francaise.

Modiano will be presented with his award at a formal ceremony in Stockholm on December 10, the anniversary of prize founder Alfred Nobel's death in 1896.

Last year's Nobel Literature Prize went to the Canadian short-story writer Alice Munro.