Ballerina

Patrick Modiano, winner of the 2014 Nobel Prize in Literature, was born in Boulogne-Billancourt, France, in 1945, and published his first novel, La Place de l’Etoile, in 1968. His previous books include Invisible Ink, Sleep of Memory, and Family Record. He lives in Paris. Mark Polizzotti has translated more than sixty books from the French. He lives in Brooklyn, NY.

“Modiano has such a deft way of describing a place or setting a scene that his words conjure up the promise of hidden worlds.”—Tobias Grey, Financial Times“[A] cascade of memories. . . . This slim, muted, atmospheric book . . . displays many of Modiano’s prodigious gifts.”—Ruth Margalit, New York Review of Books“A nimble translation by Mark Polizzotti. . . . Modiano masters the familiar tropes of the roman noir to build intrigue and suspense, before subverting the genre’s conventions.”—Marcus Hijkoop, The Telegraph“Whenever I pick up a book by Patrick Modiano, a writer I love, I feel that I am on a kind of diving expedition, going down, down, down into the hushed, clouded sea of memory. . . . This novel . . . [is] a hunt for a person long vanished, mournful and mysterious, as brief and beautiful as a flashbulb.”—Alexandra Schwartz, New Yorker“Modiano is one of France’s greatest living writers. . . . He imbues his taut, slim novels with the thrill of chasing a mystery.”—Jeanne Bonner, Boston Globe“Ballerina is structured like memory itself, and feels true to life. . . . [A] beautiful work of serendipity.”—Frank Lawton, The Spectator“[A] slim, melancholic, and soaring novel.”—Judith von Sternburg, Frankfurter RundschauPraise for the French Edition:  “The most ethereal, slender, and crystal-clear of Patrick Modiano’s beautiful novels.”—Jérôme Garcin, L’Obs  “In this novel full of delicate melancholy, dance and writing finally become one.”—Fabienne Lemahieu, La Croix  “The memories are hazy and the charm works. Irresistibly. We would like to wander the streets of Paris endlessly with Patrick Modiano.”—Marianne Payot, L’Express  “A superb novel. . . . Through the repetition of a sound, a light, the name of a character or a street, Patrick Modiano plunges us into a waking dream-state. He invites us, without saying it, to an adventure akin to mysticism. The past no longer exists: everything, under his pen, becomes ‘eternal present.’”—Julien Burri, Le Temps  “A book by Modiano . . . you read it in a kind of incandescence. It’s an event. And then, it vanishes: like a mirage. It eludes explanation, description, it’s just something you feel. It’s pure sensibility. Like music. It’s hard to talk about music. We stammer. . . . He is not the author of the past. He is the author of the eternal present that we feel within us.”—Christine Angot, France Inter