Chronotopes in Patrick Modiano’s Fictional Writing of History

Abstract

The historical heritage that precedes our lives chronologically, such as the experiences of French Jews during the German occupation of their country in World War II, is of fundamental importance to the authorship of Patrick Modiano, born in 1945.  While the majority of his novels are clearly autobiographical in their references, Dora Bruder (1997) attempts to trace the life of a young Jewish girl during the Nazi Occupation of Paris.  Through the narrative, buildings, streets and various topoi in Paris and France become connected to certain experiences of time (chronos) in a manner resonant of Michail Bakhtin’s theories of the chronotope, providing an interesting approach to discussing Modiano’s unique form of recreating a traumatic past by means of fiction.