Alison Rice, Professor of French Literature at the University of Notre Dame discusses the book, Rue des boutiques obscures written by Patrick Modiano and winner of the 1978 Prix Goncourt. It is the story of Guy Roland, a private detective who, after suffering from amnesia,embarks on an investigation to find his true identity.

Patrick Modiano was born in 1945 in Boulogne-Billancourt to a father of Jewish-Italian origins and a Belgian mother. He was awarded the Grand prix du roman de l’Académie française in 1972 and the Prix Goncourt in 1978. Research Presented as part of Les grands prix littéraires, a One Book/One Francophone Chicago series

Professor Rice specializes in 20th- and 21st-century Francophone literature. Her teaching and research interests include autobiography, critical theory, postcolonial studies, immigrant and second-generation literature, translation theory, contemporary women’s writing, music in literature, and “Francophonie” in a large sense. Her book Time Signatures: Contextualizing Contemporary Francophone Autobiographical Writing from the Maghreb (Lexington Books 2006), closely examines the work of Hélène Cixous, Assia Djebar, and Abdelkébir Khatibi. Her current project, Metronomes: A Series of Filmed Interviews, focuses on women writers of French from around the world.

This program is generously sponsored by the Jean Brown Lecture Fund.

Recorded Saturday, November 08, 2008 at Alliance Française de Chicago.