Among the French novelists born toward the end of World War II or after it, Patrick Modiano has created one of the most distinctive fictional universes. His works, written in a pure and graceful style, present a decomposing world marked by shadowy events and inhabited by protagonists who know above all fear, alienation, and regret. They struggle with the labyrinths of memory and time in a fumbling search for their murky origins; they find themselves at the mercy of the monstrous hazards of life, and they explore absence, death, and the disappearance of beings and things.

Though Modiano has granted several interviews and has appeared on television and though he has confirmed the autobiographical basis of much of his writing, few details about his personal life have become public knowledge. Modiano was born in Boulogne-Billancourt, a suburb of Paris. His mother, a Flemish actress named Louisa Colpeyn, and...