Missing Person (Verba Mundi Book) - Softcover

Modiano, Patrick

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1567922813 ISBN 13: 9781567922813

Publisher: David R. Godine, Publisher, 2005

About this title

About the Authors

Patrick Modiano was awarded the 2014 Nobel Prize in Literature for a body of work that includes Missing Person and Honeymoon (both published by Godine).

Daniel Weissbort was born in London and educated at Cambridge, where he was a History Exhibitioner. In addition to his translations, Weissbort published many collections of his own poetry, co-edited a historical reader in translation theory, and wrote a book about the translator Ted Hughes.

Reviews

Twenty-seven years after its original French publication won the Prix Goncourt, this elliptical, engrossing rumination on the essence of identity and the search for self finally enjoys its first U.S. edition (which uses Weissbort's smooth 1980 English translation). Set in postwar Paris, it follows an amnesiac now known as Guy Roland, employed for the past decade by a kindly private investigator. When the PI retires, Roland sets out to lift the veil on his past. As he ably conducts this most personal of investigations, Roland begins to suspect that he may have employed multiple identities, leading a mysteriously compartmentalized existence. He may even have been fleeing the German occupation when his memory was wiped away. Roland's explorations bring home his mentor's observation that we all live in a world where "the sand keeps the traces of our footsteps only a few moments." Even as it opens the door to new mysteries, the enigmatic ending underscores the human drive to preserve those footsteps for as long as we draw breath. Frank Sennett
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: David R. Godine, Publisher
• Publication date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1567922813
• ISBN 13: 9781567922813
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 192