2014 Nobel Prize in Literature

The 2014 Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded to Patrick Modiano. The prize was announced by the Swedish Academy in Stockholm on 9 October 2014.

The citation

The citation reads: "for the art of memory with which he has evoked the most ungraspable human destinies and uncovered the life-world of the occupation".

The laureate

Patrick Modiano was born in 1945 in Paris, France.

Why it matters

The French novelist's work often returns to Paris during the German occupation and to the search for lost identities.

The prize

The prize is worth 8 million Swedish kronor. It will be presented at a ceremony in Stockholm on 10 December, the anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite whose will founded the prizes in 1895.