"Mr Modiano's novels are pervaded by a sexual and moral ambivalence and by social and political ambiguity. Improbable aristocrats, likable eccentrics, would-be actresses, circus performers and cabaret workers--no one is ever who they appear to be. And Paris features as a character in her own right, refusing to surrender the secrets of her past."--The Economist

"A timely glimpse at [Modiano's] fixations . . . In Mark Polizzotti's spare and elegant translation, the writing conveys a sense of dreamy unease in which the real, the hypothesized, and the half-forgotten blend into a shimmering vagueness."--Sam Sacks, Wall Street Journal

"Elegant . . . quietly unpretentious, approachable . . . Though enigmatic and open-ended, Modiano's remembrances of things past and his probings of personal identity are presented with a surprisingly light touch. He is, all in all, quite an endearing Nobelist."--Michael Dirda, Washington Post

"Mr. Modiano writes clear, languid, and urbane sentences in Mr. Polizzotti's agile translation . . . these novellas have a mood. They cast a spell."--Dwight Garner, New York Times

"A haunting tramp across the years in search of a woman named Jacqueline, but also of lost places and past selves."--Charlotte Rogan, in the San Francisco Chronicle's "Writer's Favorite Books of 2015"

"The power of Paris Nocturne lies in its convincing evocation of [a] kind of deja vu, this uncertainty whether past is present or present is past. . . . Paris Nocturne, as its title suggests, has the nighttime logic of a dream."--Adam Kirsch, Daily Beast

"A chilling portrait of everyday obsession . . . a sober and satisfying reminder of life's slipperiness . . . edgy and distilled . . . intriguing and readable."--Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal (starred review)

"This novel provides a superb and--at 160 pages--accessible entry to [Modiano's] writings. . . . The narrator's search for Jacqueline propels the novel forward with the intensity of a noir. But Modiano is not writing mere pulp; the novel's true center is the past's pull, the way memories lay dormant for years only to explode 'like a time bomb.'"--Publishers Weekly

"Like W. G. Sebald, another European writer haunted by memory and by the history that took place just before he was born, Modiano combines a detective's curiosity with an elegist's melancholy."--Adam Kirsch, New Republic

"This is classic Modiano . . . shapely, of the Modiano books to appear this year (and since he won the Nobel last year, more are expected), Paris Nocturne is the most accessible, and satisfying."--Michael Autrey, Booklist

"It is easy to become totally engrossed in this work . . . Reading Modiano can be an addicting experience . . . A reader would have to have a heart of granite not to identify empathetically with this speaker as he reveals his life--in its many different aspects across time--and with the author whose own life parallels, if not duplicates, these events."--Mary Whipple, Seeing the World Through Books (blog)

"Beautifully written and translated . . . simultaneously realistic and hallucinatory, suspenseful and calm, and finally, poignant."--Ariel Balter, New York Journal of Books

"[Paris Nocturne] feels like a strange, ephemeral lyric poem to post-war Paris. . . . Ultimately, the book, and much of Modiano's work, is about the necessity of remembering the traces of human life which history can't record and rendering them in art--unverifiable, ambiguous, lasting."--Karl Williams, Michigan Daily

"Modiano writes as though through a scrim, at once transparent and cloudy, and shows us something that is beautiful because it is precisely imprecise, because it cannot, will not, may not be known."--Yevgeniya Traps, Forward

"[A] haunting novel . . . Modiano's limpid and elliptical style blend[s] vagueness and precision, realism and dreaminess."--Gerald Prince, World Literature Today

Longlisted for the 2016 PEN/Translation prize given by PEN America

Shortlisted for the 2016 Australian Academy of the Humanities Translation Prize