Lynn Higgins, Israel Evans Professor in Oratory and Belles Lettres, French and Comparative Literature; Chair, Department of French and Italian
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I've read this book at least a half-dozen times, most recently for my class on 20th-century France. A narrator - Modiano himself - goes looking for traces of a young Parisian Jewish runaway who was found by the Gestapo and deported, and then died in Auschwitz. Modiano was born in 1945 but has written many novels set during the Occupation. In this book, both a memoir and a work of imagination, Modiano reveals how he writes, and why. It's a fascinating read and a powerful demonstration of why literature matters.