Every year the Nobel Prize in literature is awarded to an outstanding author, notable past winners include Günter Grass, Toni Morrison, William Golding, and my personal favorite, Gabriel García Márquez. The Nobel Prize, in addition to it’s esteem, currently garnishes prize money totaling 8 million SEK, or approximately $1.2 million US dollars.
This year’s winner, French author Patrick Modiano, is not one I am familiar with, As is the case with most readers. A poll on the Nobel Prize website remarked that only 7% of voters had read his work. I will certianly be diving into his work in the near future. Quoting the Nobel Prize website, “The Nobel Prize in Literature 2014 was awarded to Patrick Modiano ‘for the art of memory with which he has evoked the most ungraspable human destinies and uncovered the life-world of the occupation'”.
Some of Modiano’s popular works include Missing Person, Honeymoon, and Out of the dark. All available on amazon.
The Nobel Prize in literature is usually overshadowed in the public eye by the Nobel Peace prize, who many believe will be awarded to Pope Francis later today.
-Josh
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