Patrick Modiano

Jean Daragane, forfatter og eneboer, har valgt at leve et tilbagetrukket liv væk fra det hektiske Paris. Han besøger næsten aldrig andre mennesker, han går sjældent ud, han tilbringer sit liv i en isoleret verden han selv har skabt. Hans fredelige tilværelse ødelægges imidlertid en varm septembereftermiddag af et truende telefonopkald fra en komplet fremmed som hævder at have fundet Daraganes gamle adressebog og ønsker at udspørge ham om et særligt navn som står i den. Men da Daragane går med til at mødes med den mystiske Gilles Ottolini, går det op for ham at han ikke kan huske en person ved navn Guy Torstel – hvor hårdt han end prøver. Alligevel er Ottolini desperat efter at få noget at vide om denne mand. Pludselig er Daragane viklet ind i Ottolini og hans smukke men skrøbelige unge kollegas liv, og involveres i mysteriet om et mere end halvtreds år gammelt mord som vil trække ham ud af hans ensomme lejlighed og tvinge ham til at forholde sig til et personligt traume han længe har undertrykt. Gennemsyret af nostalgi, med sin diskrete finesse og sin egen unikke poesi, bjergtager denne mørke, mystiske roman ved på en gang at provokere og henrykke. PATRICK MODIANO, f. 1945, er en fransk forfatter og modtog i 2014 Nobelprisen i litteratur for sin »erindringskunst som han bruger til at fremkalde de mest uhåndgribelige menneskeskæbner og afdække livet under besættelsen«.Patrick Modianos romaner foregår oftest i og omkring Paris, men byen optræder som mere end bare kulisse, da dens atmosfære og forandring ofte spiller en væsentlig rolle i romanerne. En kritiker skrev engang: »Patrick Modiano er for Paris, hvad Woody Allen er for New York: en hukommelse og en samvittighed.«SÅ DU IKKE FARER VILD I KVARTERET er gennemsyret af nostalgi. Med sin diskrete finesse og sin egen unikke poesi bjergtager denne mørke, mystiske roman ved på en gang at provokere og henrykke.»Denne uafbrudte undersøgelse, som ifølge Modiano måske er meningsløs, ender alligevel – i Prousts ånd – med en ihærdig og fascinerende søgen efter den tabte tid.« –LE NOUVEL OBSERVATEUR

From beloved storyteller and Nobel Prize winner Patrick Modiano, a masterly and gripping crime novel set in picturesque Nice on the French Riviera Stolen jewels, black markets, hired guns, crossed lovers, unregistered addresses, people gone missing, shadowy figures disappearing in crowds, newspaper stories uncomfortably close and getting closer . . . this ominous novel is Patrick Modiano’s most noirish work to date. Set in Nice—a departure from the author’s more familiar Paris—this novel evokes the bright sun and dark shadow of the Riviera. Modiano’s trademark ability to create a haunting atmosphere is here on full display: readers descend precipitously into a world of mystery, uneasiness, inevitability. A young couple in hiding keeps close watch over a notorious diamond necklace known as the Southern Cross. Its provenance is murky, its whereabouts known only to our hero and heroine, who find themselves trapped by its potential value—and its ultimate cost. Deftly Modiano reaches further and further into the past, revealing the secret histories of the two even as the pressurized present threatens to overwhelm them.

Nobel laureate Patrick Modiano’s spellbinding tale of adolescent schoolmates and the vicissitudes of fate As a boarding school student in the early 1960s, Patrick Modiano lived among the troubled teenage sons of wealthy but self-involved parents. In this mesmerizing novel, Modiano weaves together a series of exquisitely crafted stories about such jettisoned boys at the exclusive Valvert School on the outskirts of Paris: abandoned children of privilege, left to create new family ties among themselves. Misfits and heroes, sports champions and good-hearted chums, the boys of Valvert misbehave, run away, get expelled, and engage in various forms of delinquency and disappearance. They emerge into adulthood tragically damaged, still tethered to their adolescent selves, powerless to escape the central loneliness of their lives in an ever-darkening spiral of self-delusion and grim consequence. A meditation on nostalgia, the pitfalls of privilege, and the vicissitudes of fate, this book fully demonstrates the powerful mix of sadness, mystery, wonder, and ominous danger that characterizes Modiano’s most rewarding fiction. Special feature: J. M. G. Le Clézio’s foreword, here in English for the first time, provides a rare and insightful appreciation of one Nobel laureate by another.

Det är tidigt 1950-tal. Patrick och hans lillebror är inackorderade hos tre väninnor till deras mor i en by utanför Paris, medan hon själv är på en årslång turné med en teatergrupp och deras far på affärsresor i Afrika. Om kvinnorna i huset vet bröderna inte mycket: brottstycken av samtal genom dörrar på glänt, mystiska besökare, tårdränkta ansikten och de ständigt upprepade orden, "gänget på rue Lauriston". I denna osäkra värld håller bröderna ihop, gör nattliga utflykter till det övergivna gamla slottet, följer med på bilturer till Paris, allt medan de väntar på att någon en dag ska komma och hämta dem. Den franske författaren Patrick Modiano, född 1945, har sedan debuten 1968 skrivit ett trettiotal böcker. Med sina starkt personliga romaner, där handlingen nästan alltid utspelar sig i Paris, har Modiano sedan länge en hängiven publik såväl i hemlandet som utomlands. Patrick Modiano har genom åren mottagit en rad litterära utmärkelser och tilldelades 2014 års Nobelpris i litteratur "för den minneskonst varmed han frammanat de ogripbaraste levnadsöden och avtäckt ockupationsårens livsvärld". "Jag vet inte vad jag ska skriva om den här romanen annat än att den måste läsas av inbitna Modianoläsare. Den kompletterar den större berättelsen. För de som ännu inte fastnat i hans magiska nät finns nu en fantastisk ingång." Per Wirtén på sin blogg "Det är spännande. Berättelsen är lågmäld och intagande. Språkligt är det sparsmakat enkelt. Anna Säflund-Orstadius, fyrfaldig Modianoöversättare, förmedlar i Straffeftergift samma stämningar och känslor som det franska originalet ger oss." BTJ-häftet

'Brisk, smart, witty, elliptical ... Recalls the directors of the New Wave ... Bracing and brilliant'IndependentWhen Patrick Modiano was awarded the 2014 Nobel Prize for Literature he was praised for using the ‘art of memory’ to bring to life the Occupation of Paris during the Second World War. Born in 1945, Modiano’s brilliant, angry writings burst onto the Parisian literary scene and caused a storm.His first, ferociously satirical novel, La Place de l’Étoile, was remarkable in seriously questioning both Nazi collaboration in France and the myths of the Gaullist era. The Night Watch tells the story of a man caught between his work for the French Gestapo and for a Resistance cell. Ring Roads recounts a son’s search for his Jewish father, who disappeared ten years previously. These brilliant, almost hallucinatory, evocations of the Occupation attempt to exorcise the past by exploring the morally ambiguous worlds of collaboration and resistance.

The elegant, haunting story of the forgotten people and places of Paris from the reigning Nobel Laureate.

A nocturnal wander through the hazes of memory and the mysteries of the past from Patrick Modiano, Nobel Laureate 2014

Roman odnogo iz luchshikh prozaikov sovremennoj Frantsii, laureata Nobelevskoj premii po literature 2014 goda Patrika Modiano. V etoj knige viden ego znamenityj "pocherk": geroj spustja mnogo let vspominaet otdelnykh ljudej, vstrechi, vse, chto proiskhodilo s nim, kogda on byl esche molod i sluchajno okazalsja v neobychnoj kompanii. Odnako glavnoe dostoinstvo romana - umenie avtora vossozdat tot osobyj mir, gde vremja poroj "probivaet bresh", skolznuv v kotoruju mozhno okazatsja i v Parizhe 60-kh godov proshlogo stoletija, i v Parizhe XIX veka.Perevodchik: Petukhov T.

Året är 1921 när Françoise Frenkel, en ung polskjudisk kvinna, passionerad bokälskare och frankofil, öppnar den första franska bokhandeln i Berlin, "Bokens Hus". "Ingenstans att vila sitt huvud" är hennes berättelse om de tidiga, lyckliga åren med en trogen kundkrets och om de hot och förföljelser under den triumferande nazismen som några dagar före krigsutbrottet 1939 tvingar henne att överge sin älskade bokhandel och hastigt lämna Tyskland och fly till Frankrike. Där hoppas hon finna en fristad. Men efter den tyska ockupationen är det istället ett dramatiskt liv som flykting hon tvingas leva fram till den dag 1943 då hon i hemlighet lyckas ta sig över gränsen till Schweiz. Där börjar hon samma år skriva ner sina minnen som hon året därpå färdigställer till den bok som 1945 ges ut i Genève.

"It's a book less on what I did than on what others, mainly my parents, did to me"Taking in a vast gallery of extraordinary characters from Paris' post-war years, Pedigree is an autobiographical portrait of Post-War Paris and a tumultuous childhood - a childhood replete with insecurity and sorrow that informed the oeuvre of France's Nobel Laureate.With his sometime-actress mother and shady businessman father barely functioning in any parental role, the young Modiano spent his childhood being packed off to the care of others, or held at a safe distance in a grimy boarding school - which he ran away from several times. His impecunious mother had "a heart of stone"; his womanising father once called the police when his son asked him for money, and later ceased all contact with him.But for all his parents' indifference, it is the death of his younger brother when Modiano is eleven that cuts deepest, leaving a wound that can never be healed.

"Modiano is an ideal writer to gorge on . . . A moody, delectable noir." -- The New Yorker "The best kind of mystery, the kind that never stops haunting you." -- Entertainment Weekly "A work of melancholic beauty . . . Sincere, shattering, magnificent." -- L'Express In the stillness of his Paris apartment, Jean Daragane has built a life of total solitude. Then a surprising phone call shatters the silence of an unusually hot September, and the threatening voice on the other end of the line leaves Daragane wary but irresistibly curious. Almost at once, he finds himself entangled with a shady gambler and a beautiful, fragile young woman, who draw Daragane into the mystery of a decades-old murder. The investigation will force him to confront the memory of a trauma he had all but buried. This masterly novel penetrates the deepest enigmas of identity and compels us to ask whether we ever know who we truly are. "Moody . . . Lyrical . . . A pleasure." -- Kirkus Reviews "A writer unlike any other and a worthy recipient of the Nobel." -- Wall Street Journal

Jean Daragane, writer and recluse, has purposely built a life of seclusion away from the Parisian bustle. He doesn't see many people, he rarely goes out: he spends his life in a solitary world of his own making.His peace is shattered however, one hot September afternoon, by a threatening phone call from a complete stranger, who claims to have found Daragane's old phone book and wants to question him about a particular name it contains. But when Daragane agrees to meet the mysterious Gilles Ottolini, he realises that - try as he might - he cannot place the name "Guy Torstel" at all. Yet Ottolini is desperate for any information on this man...Finding himself suddenly entangled in the lives of Ottolini and his beautiful, but fragile young associate, Daragane is drawn into the mystery of a decades-old murder that will drag him out of his lonely apartment and force him to confront the memory of a long-suppressed personal trauma.Imbued with nostalgia, subtlety, and its own unique poetry, this darkly mysterious novel weaves a spell that provokes as much as it entrances.

A mesmerizing novel by Nobel Laureate Patrick Modiano, now superbly translated for English-language readers For long standing admirers of Modiano's luminous writing as well as those readers encountering his work for the first time, Little Jewel will be an exciting discovery. Uniquely told by a young female narrator, Little Jewel is the story of a young woman adrift in Paris, imprisoned in an imperfectly remembered past. The city itself is a major character in Modiano's work, and timeless moral ambiguities of the post-Occupation years remain hauntingly unresolved. One day in the corridors of the metro, nineteen-year-old Th r se glimpses a woman in a yellow coat. Could this be the mother who long ago abandoned her? Is she still alive? Desperate for answers to questions that have tormented her since childhood, Th r se pursues the mysterious figure on a quest through the streets of Paris. In classic Modiano style, this book explores the elusive nature of memory, the unyielding power of the past, and the deep human need for identity and connection.

The first novel by the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature 2014, which with The Night Watch and Ring Roads forms a trilogy of the Occupation'A Marcel Proust of our time' Peter Englund, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy'Modiano is the poet of the Occupation and a spokesman for the disappeared, and I am thrilled that the Swedish Academy has recognised him' Rupert Thomson, GuardianModiano’s debut novel is a sardonic, often grotesque satire of France during the Nazi occupation.We are immediately plunged into the hallucinatory imagination of Raphaël Schlemilovitch, a young Jewish man, torn between self-aggrandisement and self-loathing, who may be the heir to a Venezuelan fortune, may have lived during the Nazi Occupation, may have rubbed shoulders with the most notorious collaborators and anti-Semites of the time, may even have been the lover of Eva Braun… or he may have been none of these things.But at the centre of this vortex is ‘La Place de l’Étoile’ – the Place of the Star – which is both the geographical and moral centre of Paris, and that place next the heart where French Jews were compelled to wear the yellow star, the symbol of their persecution.

«Han klarte ikke å ta blikket fra dette bildet og lurte på hvorfor han hadde glemt det blant papirene i «saksmappen». Var det noe som plaget ham, et bevis som det heter i rettsspråket, og som han, Daragane, hadde forsøkt å skyve ut av hukommelsen?» En dag ringer telefonen til Jean Daragane og han svarer etter lang tids nøling. En fremmed forteller at han har funnet en adressebok som Daragane har mistet. De avtaler å møtes og den fremmede begynner å spørre ham ut om en viss Guy Torstel som er oppført i adresseboken, men som Daragane først ikke har noen erindring om. Han får også et bilde av en liten gutt han vagt drar skjensel på, og langsomt begynner minnene fra rotløs oppvekst å komme til ham.«Patrick Modiano søker i bok etter bok etter formelen som åpner dørene til det forgangne. Så du ikke går deg bort er en av hans sterkeste tekster, en vakker og uforglemmelig roman.»François Busnel, L’Express "Så du ikke går deg bort" er en etterforskningshistorie som skal fordype mysteriet for leseren, ikke oppklare det. Det skjer på utsøkt vis, og det er formidabelt hvordan en saklig poetisk skrivemåte kan romme og plassere all medynk i en eneste setning, romanens siste."Freddy O. Fjellheim, Klassekampen "Og denne teksten er en sann nytelse å lese! Det sies at Modiano skriver den samme historien om og om igjen, nemlig om søken etter fortiden. Han tar oss med på en vandring i undringen og søken etter en sannhet som kanskje ikke finnes. For hvem besitter egentlig den sanne historien? Historien er både enkel og mystisk. (...) Boken er bare 110 sider, men bør leses sakte, for her må hvert avsnitt synke inn, slik at språket kommer til sin rett."Ingvild Kjøde, KK"Nobelprisvinner Patrick Modianos nyeste roman er en suveren oppvisning i litterær selvbevissthet. (...) et stykke vakker og fortrøstningsfull litteratur."Turid Larsen, Dagsavisen

An NYRB Classics Original Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature Young Once is a crucial book in the career of Nobel laureate Patrick Modiano. It was his breakthrough novel, in which he stripped away the difficulties of his earlier work and found a clear, mysteriously moving voice for his haunting stories of love, nostalgia, and grief. It has also been called "the most gripping Modiano book of all" (Der Spiegel). Odile and Louis are leading a happy, bucolic life with their two children in the French countryside near the Swiss mountains. It is Odile's thirty-fifth birthday, and Louis's thirty-fifth birthday is a few weeks away. Then the story shifts back to their early years: Louis, just freed from his military service and at loose ends, is taken up by a shady character who brings him to Paris to do some work for a friend who manages a garage; Odile, an aspiring singer, is at the mercy of the kindness and unkindness of strangers. In a Paris that is steeped in crime and full of secrets, they find each other and struggle together to create what, looking back, will have been their youth.