Verba Mundi International Literature Series: Missing Person

In this novel by the Nobel Prize–winning author of Dora Bruder, an amnesiac embarks on a quest to uncover his lost identity, journeying from Polynesia to Rome. The protagonist, Guy Roland, has lived without a past for a decade, his current life and name bestowed upon him by his recently retired boss, Hutte, who welcomed him into his detective agency.

Utilizing Hutte's vast trove of files – directories, yearbooks, and papers dating back half a century – Guy searches for clues to his true identity. Could he be the individual captured in a photograph, remembered by some as a South American attaché? Or was he someone else, perhaps the disappeared heir of a prominent local family? As Guy interviews strangers, he is tantalised by fleeting hints and half-clues, until he finally grasps a thread that leads him through the maze of his own repressed experiences.

Published in France as Rue des Boutiques obscures, this novel is both a detective mystery and a haunting meditation on the nature of the self. Patrick Modiano's spare, hypnotic prose, superbly translated by Daniel Weissbort, draws readers into the intoxication of a rare literary experience.

Praise for Missing Persons: "[An] elliptical, engrossing rumination on the essence of identity and the search for self." —Frank Sennet, Booklist "A fine introduction to his work. . . . Beautifully written and perfectly noirish, as though the world were being seen through a haze of Gauloise smoke. Be warned, though: after reading this, a sensitive soul may well seize up the next time a stranger waves." —Kirkus Reviews

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