Peter Englund, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, steps out of his office to announce French writer Patrick Modiano as the winner of the 2014 Nobel Prize for Literature
Peter Englund, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, steps out of his office to announce French writer Patrick Modiano as the winner of the 2014 Nobel Prize for Literature in Stockholm October 9, 2014. Modiano has won the prize as "a Marcel Proust of our time," the Swedish Academy said on Thursday. The academy said the award of 8 million Swedish crowns ($1.1 million) was "for the art of memory with which he has evoked the most ungraspable human destinies and uncovered the life-world of the occupation". REUTERS/Anders Wiklund/TT News

Patrick Modiano has been declared as the 2014 Nobel Prize winner for Literature. The French novelist was awarded arguably the highest award for literary brilliance that is worth £691,000.

According to the Nobel Academy, Modiano had used the "art of memory" to uncover the "the life-world of the occupation" and evoke the "most ungraspable human destinies." BBC reported that Modiano focused majorly on the World War II as well as the 1940s in his literary work. His first novel called La Place de l'Etoile was published in 1968. He earlier won major literary awards such as the Prix mondial Cino Del Duca and the Austrian State Prize for European Literature in 2010 and 2012 respectively. His last published work was called L'Herbe de nuit which was published in 2012.

The official website gives some interesting facts about the Nobel Prize for Literature. There have been 107 recipients of the award since it started in 1901. There are 13 women authors so far that have been awarded with the Literature Prize. There were four occasions when the prize was divided between two authors. The youngest author to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature was Rudyard Kipling, best known for "The Jungle Book," who had received it at the age of 42. The oldest recipient of the award so far was Doris Lessing, who got it in 2007. The website also says that the average age of the authors receiving the prize is 64.

Peter Englund, Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy, explained how the Nobel Committee would conduct the process of selecting a winner. "In February all the received nominations, usually a bit over 200, are reviewed. They are then processed by the Nobel Committee," Englund said, "The work is supported by the Academy's own employees, but also outside experts are hired for translations, statements and the like."

The previous winner of the Literature Prize was Canadian author Alice Munro. Interestingly, the first author to receive the award was a Frenchman. It was Sully Prudhomme, who was the first recipient of the award. The only Australian to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature so far was Patrick White, who was awarded in 1973 "for an epic and psychological narrative art, which has introduced a new continent into literature."

Contact the writer: s.mukhopadhyay@ibtimes.com.au