French author, Modiano, wins 2014 Nobel Prize for Literature

French author Patrick Modiano, has been awarded the 2014 Nobel Prize for literature.

He is the 14th French writer to win the award.

A total of 111 individuals, including Nigeria’s literary giant, Wole Soyinka, have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature between 1901 and 2014.

Soyinka won the esteemed prize in 1986.

According to the Nobel Academy, Modiano was awarded the prize, which is worth eight million kronor (£691,000) “for the art of memory with which he has evoked the most ungraspable human destinies and uncovered the life-world of the occupation”.

Born to an Italain father and a Belgian mother, shortly after the end of World War II , Modiano’s novels, Rue des boutiques obscures, won him the the Prix Goncourt in 1978  and the Grand prix du roman de l’Académie française in 1972 for Les Boulevards de ceinture.

In 2012, he was given the Austrian State Prize for European Literature  and in 2010 the Prix mondial Cino Del Duca from the Institut de France for “lifetime achievement”.