Modiano's Nobel Lecture: 'I Will Remain Optimistic'

Quotation of the Day - via Shelf Awareness

Modiano

"Time has speeded up since then and moves forward in fits and starts--explaining the difference between the towering literary edifices of the past, with their cathedral-like architectures, and the disjointed and fragmented works of today. From this point of view, my own generation is a transitional one, and I would be curious to know how the next generations, born with the Internet, mobile phones, e-mails and tweets, will express through literature this world in which everyone is permanently 'connected' and where 'social networks' are eating into that part of intimacy and secrecy that was still our own domain until quite recently--the secrecy that gave depth to individuals and could become a major theme in a novel. But I will remain optimistic about the future of literature and I am convinced that the writers of the future will safeguard the succession just as every generation has done since Homer."

--Patrick Modiano, from the Nobel lecture he delivered Sunday.

 Modiano receives his Nobel Prize in Literature tomorrow.


And story in The Guardian:
Patrick Modiano accepts Nobel prize, confident of literature’s future