Patrick Modiano

Patrick Modiano (2014)

Patrick Modiano (born July 30, 1945 in Boulogne-Billancourt near Paris ) is a French writer and author of around thirty novels, for which he has been honored with a number of prizes, including the Grand Prix du Roman of the Académie française and the Prix Goncourt . On October 9, 2014, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature : "For the art of remembering, with which he awakened the most incomprehensible human fates and made the world during the (German) occupation visible."

Life

Patrick Modiano was born in 1945 in house number 11 of the Allée Marguerite in Boulogne-Billancourt . His father Albert (1912–1977) was an Italian- Jewish merchant with Sephardic roots in Thessaloniki , his mother Louisa Colpeyn (1918–2015) a Belgian actress of Hungarian descent (“half Hungarian, half Belgian”). The parents met in Paris during the German occupation . Modiano spent his childhood in Paris in an apartment at number 15 on Quai de Conti , which his father had taken over from Maurice Sachs in 1942 . As a schoolboy he lived in boarding schools until he came of age. His only brother Rudy died of leukemia in 1957 at the age of nine . Modiano dedicated the work to him between 1967 and 1982. In his autobiographical book A Family Tree , he described his childhood and youth.

The baccalaureate put Modiano 1962 in Annecy , one year earlier than scheduled. Since 1960 he had taken geometry lessons from the writer Raymond Queneau , a friend of his mother's. This acquaintance led him to give up his studies at the Paris Lycée Henri IV , which was supposed to prepare him for the concours for a grande école , after a few weeks. Instead, he let Queneau introduce him to the world of literature. Among other things, Queneau took the young Modiano to a cocktail party organized by Editions Gallimard . Gallimard signed him.

In 1968 Modiano published his first work, La Place de l'Étoile , not without first having given it to Queneau to read . “Sternplatz” - place de l'étoile - is the name of the square in Paris on which the Arc de triomphe stands, but in this case it also means the place at heart level where Jews under the German occupation had to attach the so-called Star of David .

Patrick Modiano lives in the 5th arrondissement in Paris. He has been married to Dominique Zehrfuss (* 1951), daughter of the architect Bernard Zehrfuss , since September 12, 1970 . The couple has two daughters: Zina (* 1974) and Marie (* 1978).

plant

Modiano's work revolves again and again around the themes of memory, forgetting, identity and guilt. According to David Foenkinos, Modiano's “memories” seem to go back to the time before his birth. Numerous works by Modiano, born in 1945, describe the experience of the Second World War . Foenkinos sees a quote from the French poet René Char as a key to his work , which Modiano prefixed his autobiographical novel Familienstammbuch (French: Livret de famille ): “To live means to persistently pursue a memory”. ("Vivre, c'est s'obstiner à achever un souvenir".)

Dora Bruder is also about tracing . In this novel, the first-person narrator researches the disappearance of a Jewish girl during the Nazi occupation of the country using newspaper clippings and police files . He goes in search of clues in offices and authorities and thus reconstructs the fate of this young woman, Dora's brother , and her family, who were deported . The author traces the girl's life by linking the places with the memories of the first-person narrator.

Modiano first became known in the German-speaking world in 1985 through the translation of Une Jeunesse ( A Youth ) by Peter Handke . Since then, almost all of the writer's works have been translated into German, but he still failed to make a big breakthrough with the public. The literary study of Patrick Modiano's work is still in its infancy in German-speaking countries.

In his French homeland, however, Modiano is considered a contemporary classic and a “skeptical romantic”. He is one of those intellectuals who oppose the trivialization of the Vichy regime and places his works under the maxim of a “duty to remember”. His representation of the occupation time draws shades of gray instead of black and white painting between the collaborators and the Resistance . A frequent topic is the question of Jewish identity.

In his Nobel Prize speech, Modiano presented himself as a representative of a certain epoch of French literature: "Being born in 1945, after cities were destroyed and entire populations disappeared, must have made me, like others my age, more sensitive to the topics of memory and forgetting."

In the foreword to his volume Romans (2013), which contains 10 of his novels, Modiano explains what the illustrations that precede the volume like an album are all about: They could suggest that his works are a kind of dreamed up or imaginary autobiography are. Even the photos of his parents - for him - have become photos of imaginary figures.

Modiano's perception of the role of readers

Modiano writes in the foreword to his volume Romans (2013) that the author himself could never be a reader of his works. From the point of view of a writer, he formulates his understanding of the role of readers as follows: "Une fois achevé, ses livres se dérobent à lui et le rejettent au profit du vrai lecteur, celui qui les comprendra mieux que leur auteur et qui, par un processus chimique, les révélera à eux-memes. ”This can be expressed in German something like this: Once you have finished your books as a writer, the works elude you. They reject the author - in favor of real readers, those who understand the works better than their author and who let the works appear before their own eyes by means of a chemical process.

style

Modiano is difficult to classify stylistically. It is partly assigned to the French "mode rétro" with its traditional narrative method. His fragmentary , collage-like technique, however, also takes up the means of the experimental Nouveau Roman . Modiano's style always remains fluid, which is precisely what ensured his success in France, where he was awarded the Prix ​​Goncourt in 1978 . Elisabeth Edl , who has translated several of Modiano's works into German, said in an interview that Modiano's texts were similar to the spoken language, “but at the same time they were very poetic” upscale tone that Modiano does not match, ”lapsed.

In the Café of the Lost Youth (2007)

→ Main article : In the Café of Lost Youth

In this work, assumptions and certainties are told about a young woman who has two names, Louki and Jacqueline, depending on which quarter of Paris she is in, and who puts an end to her life herself. Despite meticulous geographical information, most of the traces of their life cannot be verified. After reading it, you only have a vague idea what actually happened and when. At the metadiscursive level, there is reflection on how a literary figure can (not) be created. Instabilities can also be found on other levels of the text, which underline that the figure Louki / Jacqueline resists narrative possibilities. For the first time Modiano uses different narrative perspectives. In addition to Louki, Guy Debord and Georges Gurdjieff play a role as phantoms. There are other big names in the Parisian bohemian artist of the 1960s, including guests at “Le Condé”, in which some of the scenes take place in retrospect. The willingness of the male characters to show compassion towards a phantom could be an indication that Modiano is increasingly writing to reconcile himself.

So you don't get lost in the neighborhood (2014)

→ Main article : So that you don't get lost in the neighborhood

In an interview for the Gallimard publishing house at the beginning of October 2014, Modiano put a personal view of his latest novel into words. The voice of an unknown caller, suspiciously insistent and with the tone of a blackmailer, reminds Jean Daragane of something from his childhood that he thought he had long since forgotten, an episode that would determine his life. Losses and felt absences can make something past accessible again. Daragane actually seems to have had a very special childhood. The statements that others make about their memories of the same time, the protagonist found in his research, do not match his own experiences. According to Modiano, what you thought to be memories may end up appearing as something you thought out. The silence of those whose traces he has lost make him write. But trying to explain people only increases their secrecy.

Publications

• 1968 La Place de l'Étoile (revised version 2004)
  • Place de l'Étoile , German by Elisabeth Edl (based on the 2004 version), Hanser, Munich 2010, ISBN 3-446-23399-7 . In addition: Elisabeth Edl: In the gloomy light of memory. Epilogue , pp. 163-190; Review (pdf), Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung , March 14, 2010
• 1969 La Ronde de nuit
  • Evening party , German by Walter Schürenberg, Ullstein, Frankfurt am Main 1981 - in: Pariser Trilogie , ISBN 3-550-06350-4 .
• 1972 Les Boulevards de Ceinture
  • Outskirts , German by Walter Schürenberg, Ullstein, Frankfurt am Main / Vienna / Berlin 1981 - in: Pariser Trilogie , ISBN 3-550-06350-4 .
• 1975 Villa Triste
  • Villa Triste , German by Walter Schürenberg, Ullstein, Berlin / Frankfurt am Main 1977, ISBN 3-550-06270-2 .
  • also as: The perfume of Yvonne , same translation, Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1994, ISBN 3-518-38857-6 .
• 1976 Emmanuel Berl, Interrogatoire
• 1977 Livret de famille
  • Family register , German by Walter Schürenberg, Ullstein, Frankfurt am Main / Vienna / Berlin 1981 - in: Pariser Trilogie , ISBN 3-550-06350-4 .
• 1978 Rue des Boutiques Obscures
  • The alley of the dark shops , German by Gerhard Heller , Propylaen, Frankfurt am Main 1979, ISBN 3-549-05576-5 .
• 1981 Une Jeunesse
  • Eine Jugend , German by Peter Handke , Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1985, ISBN 3-518-03575-4 .
• 1981 Memory Lane (with illustrations by Pierre Le-Tan)
• 1982 De si braves garçons
• 1983 Poupée Blonde (with illustrations by Pierre Le-Tan)
• 1984 Quartier perdu
• 1986 Dimanches d'août
  • Sundays in August , German by Andrea Spingler , Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1989, ISBN 3-518-40169-6 .
• 1988 Remise de peine
  • Penal order , German by Andrea Spingler, Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1990, ISBN 3-518-40234-X .
• 1988 Catherine Certitude (with illustrations by Jean-Jacques Sempé )
  • Catherine, the little dancer , German by Ingrid Altrichter, Diogenes, Zurich 1991, ISBN 978-3-257-01162-3 .
• 1989 Vestiaire de l'enfance
  • Anteroom of Childhood , German by Andrea Spingler, Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1992, ISBN 3-518-40447-4 .
• 1990 Voyage de noces
  • Honeymoon , German by Andrea Spingler, Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1991, ISBN 3-518-40348-6 .
• 1990 Paris Tendresse (with photographs by Brassaï )
• 1991 Fleurs de ruine
  • Ruin flowers , German by Andrea Spingler, Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 2000, ISBN 3-518-39633-1 .
• 1992 Un cirque passe
• 1993 Chien de printemps
  • Such a young dog , German by Jörg Aufenanger, Kowalke Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-932191-19-6 .
• 1996 You plus loin de l'oubli
  • From deep oblivion , German by Elisabeth Edl, Hanser, Munich / Vienna 2000, ISBN 3-446-19848-2 .
• 1996 Le 21 mars, le premier jour du printemps. (in: Catherine Deneuve and Patrick Modiano, Elle s'appelait Françoise ... )
• 1997 Dora brother
  • Dora Bruder , German by Elisabeth Edl, Hanser, Munich / Vienna 1998, ISBN 3-446-19287-5 .
• 1999 Des inconnues
  • Unknown women , German by Elisabeth Edl, Hanser, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-446-20134-3 .
• 2001 La Petite Bijou
  • Die Kleine Bijou , German by Peter Handke, Hanser, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-446-20272-2 .
• 2002 Éphéméride
• 2003 Accident nocturne
  • Accident during the night , German by Elisabeth Edl, Hanser, Munich / Vienna 2006, ISBN 3-446-20716-3 .
• 2005 Un pedigree
  • A family tree , German by Elisabeth Edl, Hanser, Munich 2007, ISBN 3-446-20922-0 .
• 2007 In the café de la jeunesse perdue
  • In the café of the lost youth , German by Elisabeth Edl, Hanser, Munich 2012, ISBN 978-3-446-23856-5 .
• 2010 L'Horizon
  • The horizon , German by Elisabeth Edl, Hanser, Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-446-23951-7 .
• 2012 L'Herbe des nuits
  • Grasses of the night , German by Elisabeth Edl, Hanser, Munich 2014, ISBN 978-3-446-24721-5 .
• 2013 Romans (10 works with foreword and photos of people and documents), 1084 p., Gallimard, ISBN 978-2-07-013956-9 , includes: Villa Triste , Livret de famille , Rue des Boutiques Obscures , Remise de peine , Chien de printemps , Dora Bruder , Accident nocturne , Un pedigree , Dans le café de la jeunesse perdue and L'Horizon .
• 2014 Pour que tu ne te perdes pas dans le quartier. roman , Gallimard, Paris 2014, ISBN 978-2-07-014693-2
  • So that you don't get lost in the district , German by Elisabeth Edl, Hanser, Munich 2015, ISBN 978-3-446-24908-0 .
• 2015 Discours à l'Académie suédoise , Gallimard, Paris 2015, ISBN 978-2-07-014906-3 .
  • 2015 The art of memory. Stockholm speech , German by Elisabeth Edl, Hanser, Munich 2015, ISBN 978-3-446-24962-2 .
• 2017 souvenirs dormants . Gallimard, Paris 2017. ISBN 978-2-07-274631-4 .
  • 2018 sleeping memories. Translated from the French by Elisabeth Edl. Hanser, Munich 2018, ISBN 978-3-446-26010-8 .
• 2017 Nos débuts in la vie . Gallimard, Paris 2017. ISBN 978-2-07-274636-9 .
  • 2018 Our beginnings in life . Translated from the French by Elisabeth Edl. Hanser, Munich 2018, ISBN 978-3-446-26011-5 .
• 2019 Encre sympathique . Gallimard, Paris 2019. ISBN 978-2072753800 .

Film adaptations

Literary template

• 1983 - The money stays between us ( Une jeunesse )
• 1994 - The Perfume of Yvonne ( Villa triste , later published as The Perfume of Yvonne )
• 2009 - Des gens qui passent (TV film by Alain Nahum, based on Un cirque passe )

script

• 1973 - Lacombe, Lucien (by Louis Malle )
• 1995 - Le fils de Gascogne (co-author; by Pascal Aubier)
• 2003 - Bon Voyage (by Jean-Paul Rappeneau )

Awards

Patrick Modiano at a press conference of the Swedish Academy in Börshuset (2014)

• 1968 Prix ​​Fénéon and Prix ​​Roger-Nimier for La place de l'Étoile
• 1972 Grand Prize of the Académie Francaise for Les Boulevards de Ceinture .
• 1978 Prix ​​Goncourt for Rue des Boutiques Obscures (German: The Alley of Dark Shops , 1979, etc.).
• 2010 award of the SWR best list
• 2010 Prix ​​mondial Cino Del Duca for his life's work
• 2012 Austrian State Prize for European Literature
• 2014 Nobel Prize in Literature

Varia

• 1997 supporting role in the film Genealogies of a crime by Raúl Ruiz.

literature

Essays

• Fabian Gris: Figuration et figurabilité des specters cinématographiques in “Les Figurants” by Didier Daeninckx and “Dora Bruder” by Patrick Modiano . In: Jutta Fortin u. a. (Ed.): L'imaginaire spectral de la littérature narrative française contemporaine . Université de Saint-Étienne, Saint-Étienne 2012, ISBN 978-2-86272-620-5 , pp. 125-134.
• Joseph Hanimann: Writing from the balloon . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , No. 146 of June 27, 2006, p. 41.
• Anja Hanten: Patrick Modiano . In: Heinz Ludwig Arnold (Hrsg.): Critical Lexicon of Foreign Language Contemporary Literature . Edition text and criticism, München (Loseblattsammlung).
• Christian Schmitt-Kilb: Literary father searches under the sign of postmodernism . Paul Auster , Patrick Modiano, Graham Swift . In: Dieter Thomä (Ed.): Fatherlessness. Past and present of a fixed idea . Suhrkamp, ​​Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-518-29547-2 , pp. 232-250.
• Sylvia Richter: Silhouettes by Patrick Modiano . In: Weimarer Contributions , Vol. 31 (1985), Issue 10, pp. 1710-1720, ISSN  0043-2199 .
• Gerhard Schewe: Patrick Modiano . In: Weimarer contributions , Vol. 37 (1991), Heft 2, pp. 291-296, ISSN  0043-2199
• Wolfgang Schwarzer: Patrick Modiano . In: Jan-Pieter Barbian (Red.): Vive la littérature! French literature in German translation . City Library Duisburg, Duisburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-89279-656-5 (together with the Association for Literature and Art Duisburg)
• Brandusa Steiciuc: Photos, photographers and frame stories from Patrick Modiano - Photos, photographes et mises en abymes chez Patrick Modiano, in Raluca Hergheligiu Ed .: Études à la loupe. Optical instruments and literature. Parthenon, Mehlingen 2018 ISBN 3942994186 pp. 201 - 206 (bilingual German & French)

Monographs

• Brigitta Coenen-Mennemeier: The weak hero. Critique of heroism in French narrative literature of the 19th and 20th centuries . Peter Lang, Bern 1999 ISBN 3-631-34126-1
• Dervila Cooke: Present pasts. Patrick Modiano's (Auto) Biographical Fictions (Faux titre; Vol. 255). Rodopi, Amsterdam 2005 ISBN 90-420-1884-4 . Verlag Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2014 ISBN 978-3-8260-5419-8
• Denis Cosnard: Dans la peau de Patrick Modiano . Fayard, 2010. ISBN 978-2-213-65505-5 .
• John E. Flower (Editor): Patrick Modiano . Rodopi, Amsterdam 2007 ISBN 978-90-420-2316-1 (English or French texts from a conference at the University of Kent in March 2004).
• Eva Gerritzen: (Con) fusions of film and book. Cinematic moments in selected novels by Patrick Modiano . Verlag Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2014 ISBN 978-3-8260-5419-8
• Martine Guyot-Bender: Mémoire en dérive. Poétique et politique de l'ambiguité chez Patrick Modiano de "Villa triste" à "Chien de Printemps" (Archives des Lettres Modernes; Vol. 276). Minard, Paris 2000 ISBN 2-256-90470-9
  • English: Paradigms of Memory. The Occupation and Other Hi / stories in the Novels of Patrick Modiano (Currents in comparative Romance languages ​​and literatures; Vol. 64). Peter Lang, Frankfurt / M. 1998 ISBN 0-8204-3864-2 (together with William van der Wolk)
• Maryline Heck, Raphaëlle Guidé (editor): Patrick Modiano . Les Cahiers de l'Herne, 2012.
• Akane Kawakami: A Self-Conscious Art. Patrick Modiano's Postmodern Fictions . Liverpool University Press, Liverpool 2000 ISBN 0-85323-536-8 (also dissertation, University of Oxford 2000)
• Alan Morris: Patrick Modiano. (Collection monographique Rodopi en litterature française contemporaine, 35) Rodopi, Amsterdam 2000 ISBN 90-420-1361-3 (EA Oxford 1996, in French)
• Colin W. Nettelbeck, Penelope A. Hueston: Patrick Modiano. Pièces d'identité, écrire l'entretemps (Archives des Lettres Modernes; vol. 220). Lettres Modernes, Paris 1986 ISBN 2-256-90413-X
• Timo Obergöker: Écritures du non-lieu. Topographies d'une impossible quête identitaire: Romain Gary , Patrick Modiano et Georges Perec . Peter Lang, Bern 2004 ISBN 3-631-52613-X (also dissertation, University of Nancy 2003)
• Birgit Schlachter: Notations of absence. Jewish-French literature after the Shoah (series Jüdische Moderne; Vol. 4). Böhlau, Cologne 2006 ISBN 978-3-412-29405-2 (also dissertation, University of Freiburg / B. 2004)
• Sabine Schutz: "Une sale histoire". The unresolved occupation with Patrick Modiano . Peter Lang, Bern 1998 ISBN 3-631-32899-0 (also dissertation, University of Freiburg / B. 1997)

Web links

Commons : Patrick Modiano  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Patrick Modiano in the catalog of the German National Library
• Patrick Modiano in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Svenska Academies: Biobibliographical Note (October 2014), nobelprize.org , with a list of translations into English, Spanish, Swedish and German as well as a selection of secondary literature in French, English and Swedish
• Fadime Düzel: Literary reappraisal of National Socialism examined using the example of André Schwarz-Bart, Patrick Modiano and Leslie Kaplan . Master's thesis, Univ. Vienna 2008. Bibliography (PDF file; 315 kB)
• In search of the beautiful driver of the water-green Fiat , review of the accident in the night , in: FAZ of May 27, 2006
• Nobel Prize Speech , December 7, 2014
• A journey of thought into the foreign , on the 75th birthday of the Nobel Prize winner for literature Patrick Modiano. In cover culture magazine from July 30, 2020

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Mario Modiano: Hamehune Modillano. The genealogical story of the Modiano family from 1570 to our days (pdf, 360 pages), www.themodianos.gr and M. Modiano, Athens 2000.
2. ↑ Luisa Colpeyn. Internet Movie Database , accessed April 15, 2016 (French). 
3. ^ Elisabeth Edl: In the gloomy light of memory. Afterword , 2010, p. 171. Edl refers to Dora Bruder .
4. ↑ Nobel Prize for Patrick Modiano: His heart is a lonely hunter . In: Spiegel Online , October 9, 2014.
5. ↑ Top honor for Patrick Modiano . In: Zeit online from October 9, 2014.
6. ^ David Foenkinos : Souvenirs . Beck, Munich 2012, ISBN 978-3-406-63947-0 , chapter 4.
7. ↑ Livret de famille , Paris, 1977, p. 7.
8. ↑ Nobel Prize for Literature goes to Patrick Modiano . In: Die Presse from October 9, 2014.
9. ^ ^{A b} Award in Stockholm: Nobel Prize for Literature goes to French Patrick Modiano . In: Spiegel Online from October 9, 2014.
10. ↑ ^{a b} Andreas Platthaus : There is an obligation to remember . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of October 9, 2014.
11. ^ NN: Modiano: Nobel Prize was unreal. focus.de, December 7, 2014, accessed December 10, 2014
12. ↑ In the original: "Les quelques photos et documents reproduits au début de ce recueil pourraient suggérer que tous ces" romans "sont une sorte d'autobiographie rêvée ou imaginaire. Les photos même de mes parents sont devenues des photos de personnages imaginaires ”, Romans , 2013, pp. 9-10.
13. ↑ Patrick Modiano: "Avant-Propos", in: Romans , 2013, pp. 9-10, p. 9.
14. ↑ Anja Köhler: Vichy and the French intellectuals. The “années noires” in the mirror of autobiographical texts . Narr, Tübingen 2001, ISBN 3-8233-5859-6 , pp. 81-82.
15. ↑ Linus Schöpfer: "And suddenly it sounds like an American thriller" . In: Tages-Anzeiger . October 2014. Retrieved October 10, 2014.
16. ↑ ^{a b} Jurate Kaminskas: "Traces, traces et figures: Dans le cafe de la jeunesse perdue de Patrick Modiano ", in: French Cultural Studies , Vol. 23, no. 4 (November 2012): 350-357 abstract
17. ^ Henri Astier: " Patrick Modiano - Dans le Cafe de la jeunesse perdue ", in: The Times Literary Supplement , No. 5492 (2008): 32, July 4, 2008
18. ^ Colin Nettelbeck: “Comme l'eau vive: mémoire et revenance dans le café de la jeunesse perdue (2007)”, in: Modiano, ou, Les intermittences de la mémoire , edited by Anne-Yvonne Julien and Bruno Blanckeman, table of contents (pdf), Hermann, Paris 2010, ISBN 978-2-7056-6954-6 , pp. 391-412
19. ↑ Interview with Patrick Modiano, Pour que tu ne te perdes pas dans le quartier de Patrick Modiano , gallimard.fr , October 2, 2014
20. ↑ Joseph Hanimann: The track reader. Patrick Modiano is a silent scout of the hidden. Once again the Swedish committee moves a narrator from the sidelines to the focus of literary attention. , in: Süddeutsche Zeitung, No. 233, October 10, 2013, ISSN  0174-4917 , p. 11.