What was I doing, at the age of eighteen, on the shore of that lake, in that fashionable spa resort? Nothing.At the outbreak of the Algerian war, a young man who calls himself Victor Chmara flees Paris for a small lakeside town on the border of France and Switzerland.It's here that he meets the flamboyant doctor René Meinthe and the mysterious auburn-haired Yvonne. Victor quickly embraces their world of pageants, soirées and late-night debauchery, and settles...

**One man hunts obsessively for his lost identity, in this intoxicating noir masterpiece from the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature'Modiano is a pure original' Adam Thirlwell**'I am nothing. Nothing but a pale shape, silhouetted that evening against the café terrace, waiting for the rain to stop'Guy Roland, a private detective in Paris, is trying to solve the mystery of his own past. His memories erased by amnesia, he has no idea where he is from, or even his ...

Initially published as No Place to Lay One's Head - the unforgettable story of one woman's struggle to survive persecution in wartime FranceIn 1921, Françoise Frenkel-a Jewish woman from Poland-opens Berlin's very first French bookshop. It is a dream come true. The bookshop attracts artists and diplomats, celebrities and poets. It brings Françoise peace, friendship and prosperity. Then, in the summer of 1939, the dream ends and Françoise's desperate, headl...

A classic French story from Nobel Prize-winner Patrick Modiano and celebrated illustrator Jean-Jacques Sempé.Beautifully illustrated, this is a love letter to Paris, ballet and childhood for fans of The Little Prince, Le Petit Nicholas and Madeline.Catherine lives with her gentle father, Georges Certitude, who runs a shipping business in Paris with a failed poet named Casterade. Father and daughter share the simple pleasures of daily life: sitting in the ch...

A critically acclaimed #1 bestseller in France—a novel of art, desire, and time lost and regained, from Nobel Prize winner Patrick Modiano“Pithy and introspective. . . . Modiano delivers wondrous images of the tricks memory plays, sharply translated by Polizzotti. . . . Readers will savor this wistful narrative.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)Paris, 1960s. A young dancer and single mother, who might or might not be the narrator...

**WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATUREMissing, a young girl, Dora Bruder, age 15.**One winter night in 1941, a Jewish girl runs away from her Paris boarding school. Stumbling across her disappearance listed in an old newspaper, Patrick Modiano finds himself propelled on a quest to exhume her fate.His search will go on to last a decade. Little more will be found, just fragments of a lost family history, a sense of the dark streets of occupied Paris, Dora’s name on...

Patrick Modiano, winner of the 2014 Nobel Prize in Literature, is the author of more than thirty books and one of France’s most admired contemporary novelists. Out of the Dark is a moody, expertly rendered tale of a love affair between two drifters.The narrator, writing in 1995, looks back thirty years to a time when, having abandoned his studies and selling off old art books to get by, he comes to know Gérard Van Bever and Jacqueline, a young, enigmatic couple who seem to...

**A haunting novel that probes the enigmas of time and memory, by Nobel Prize–winning author Patrick Modiano“Polizzotti’s crisp and evocative translation keeps the reader hooked.”—Publishers Weekly**In his acclaimed semi-autobiographical novella Suspended Sentences, Patrick Modiano recounted a dramatic season in his childhood, of the home he shared with sinister surrogate parents, the mysterious events that took place there, and an infamous heist that was ...

In this essential trilogy of novellas by the winner of the 2014 Nobel Prize in Literature, French author Patrick Modiano reaches back in time, opening the corridors of memory and exploring the mysteries to be encountered there. Each novella in the volume--Afterimage, Suspended Sentences, and Flowers of Ruin—represents a sterling example of the author’s originality and appeal, while Mark Polizzotti’s superb English-language translations capture not only Modiano’...

An enthralling reflection on the ways that family history influences identity, from the 2014 Nobel laureate for literatureA mix of autobiography and lucid invention, this highly personal work offers a deeply affecting exploration of the meaning of identity and pedigree. With his signature blend of candor, mystery, and bewitching elusiveness, Patrick Modiano weaves together a series of interlocking stories from his family history: his parents’ courtship in occupied ...

Patrick Modiano and Louis Malle’s screenplay for the Oscar-nominated film tells a powerful story set in World War II France of a seventeen-year-old boy who allies himself with collaborators, only to fall in love with a Jewish girlThis early work by the Nobel Prize winner Patrick Modiano relates the story of Lucien Lacombe: a poor boy in Nazi-occupied France who, rebuffed in his efforts to enter the Resistance for a taste of war, becomes a member of a sordid, pathet...

Patrick Modiano explores the boundaries of recollection in a "mesmerizing, enigmatic novel" (Publishers Weekly)**“Nobel Prize winner Modiano’s title smartly ties together the theme, plot, and ambience of his latest book . . . The past overlaps and memories half-emerge in classic Modiano fashion, just as a message in invisible ink tentatively reveals itself in the right light.”—**Library Journal"An enchanting read."...