French novelist Modiano wins Nobel Prize for Literature

The Nobel judges praised Modiano for "for the art of memory with which he has evoked the most ungraspable human destinies and uncovered the life-world of the occupation."

"You could say he's a Marcel Proust of our time," Peter Englund, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, told reporters.

"His books speak to each other; they are echoes of each other," Englund added.

The value of the award is of 8 million Swedish Kronas (US$1.1 million).

The son of an Italian Jewish father and a Belgian mother, Modiano's work repeatedly examines Jewishness and the Nazi occupation.

Modiano's works have centered on memory, oblivion, identity and guilt that often take place during the German occupation of World War II and 1940’s.

He published his first novel, La Place de l'Etoile in 1968 — later hailed in Germany as a key Post-Holocaust work. Modiano, 69, is the 11th Nobel literature prize winner born in France.

His novel "Rue des Boutiques Obscures" — English title: "Missing Person" — won the prestigious Prix Goncourt in 1978.

In 2012, he won the Austrian State Prize for European Literature.

He has published more than 40 works in French, some of which have been translated into English, including Ring of Roads: A Novel, Villa Triste, A Trace of Malice, and Honeymoon.

He has also written children's books and film scripts and made the 1974 feature movie Lacombe, Lucien with director Louis Malle.

He was a member of the jury at the Cannes Film Festival in 2000.

His latest work is the novel "Pour que tu ne te perdes pas dans le quartier."

A total 111 individuals have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature between 1901 and 2014.

Last year's winner was Canadian author Alice Munro.

This year's Nobel Prize announcements started Monday with a U.S.-British scientist splitting the medicine prize with a Norwegian husband-and-wife team for brain research that could pave the way for a better understanding of diseases like Alzheimer's.

Two Japanese researchers and a Japanese-born American won the physics prize for the invention of blue light-emitting diodes, a breakthrough that spurred the development of LED as a new light source.

The chemistry prize on Wednesday went to two Americans and a German researcher who found new ways to give microscopes sharper vision, letting scientists peer into living cells with unprecedented detail to seek the roots of disease.

The winner of the Nobel Peace Prize will be announced Friday, followed by the award for achievements in economics Monday.