French
historical author Patrick Modiano has won the 2014 Nobel Prize for literature.
The Nobel
Academy described the novelist, whose work has often focused on the Nazi
occupation of France, as "a Marcel Proust of our time".BBC reports.
The award
- presented to a living writer - is worth eight million kronor (£691,000).
Previous
winners include literary giants such as Rudyard Kipling, Toni Morrison and
Ernest Hemingway.
At a
press conference in Paris, the publicity-shy Modiano expressed his surprise at
the win and said he was keen to find out why he was chosen.
"I
wasn't expecting it at all," he said. "It was like I was a bit
detached from it all, as if a doppelganger with my name had won."
Modiano
beat bookies' favourites Japanese writer Haruki Murakami and Kenyan novelist,
poet and playwright Ngugi wa Thiong'o. The last French writer to win the prize
was Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio in 2008.