Modiano's first three novels about Paris under Nazi occupation in a single volume, the earliest - La Place de l'Etoile - appears here in English for the first time

A Marcel Proust of our time Peter Englund, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy Modiano is a pure original Adam Thirlwell From the satirical portrayal of anti-Semitism in his debut novel [La Place de l'Etoile] to later books such as The Search Warrant and Missing Person, the Occupation shapes much of Modiano's work Boyd Tonkin, Independent 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, Guardian

Patrick Modiano was born in Paris in 1945 in the immediate aftermath of World War Two and the Nazi occupation of France, a dark period which continues to haunt him. After passing his baccalaureat, he left full-time education and dedicated himself to writing, encouraged by the French writer Raymond Queneau. From his very first book to his most recent, Modiano has pursued a quest for identity and some form of reconciliation with the past. His books have been published in forty languages and among the many prizes they have won are the Grand Prix du Roman de l'Academie francaise (1972), the Prix Goncourt (1978) and the Austrian State Prize for European Literature (2012). In 2014 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Frank Wynne is the prize-winning translator of Michel Houellebecq, Frederic Beigbeder and Boualem Sansal.