Missing Person by Patrick Modiano📖

Summary of Missing Person

“Missing Person” is a novel about a man who lost his memory during the Second World War and found a new identity working as a detective in Paris. When his boss closes the detective agency, he embarks on an investigation into his own past. His search takes him back to the Paris of the 1930s and ‘40s – he discovers that he was likely a Greek Jew living in Paris during the war – and ultimately to French Polynesia and Rome.

Reasons to read Missing Person

“Missing Person” is a literary detective novel that won the prestigious Prix Goncourt. Modiano’s own father was a Jew of Italian-Greek heritage who survived the war in Paris using a false name. Patrick Modiano is one of the most acclaimed contemporary French authors. His novels often centre around themes of identity and memory. Modiano received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2014, the Austrian State Prize for European Literature in 2012, the Prix Goncourt in 1978 (for “Missing Person”), and the Grand Prix du roman de l’Académie française in 1972 (for “Les boulevards de ceinture”). Other notable books by Patrick Modiano include “La Place de l’Etoile” (his debut), “Villa Triste”, “Dora Bruder” (“The Search Warrant”), and “Dans le café de la jeunesse perdue” (“In the Café of Lost Youth”).

Setting: Paris (France), etc.

Book set in Paris, France; French Polynesia (Bora Bora); and Rome

Original title: Rue des boutiques obscures

Year of publication: 1978

Nr of pages: 192