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Françoise Hardy, the French icon and singer known for evoking romantic existentialism in her music, has died at the age of 80.

Her son, Thomas Dutronc, confirmed her death in a Facebook post. Sharing a photo of her holding him as a baby, Dutronc simply wrote, “Maman est partie.”

According to Barron’s, the singer had struggled with cancer since 2004.

Hardy rose to prominence in the Sixties, becoming known for her songwriting and evocative lyrics. Her debut album, Tout les garçons et les filles, was released in 1962 and delivered some of...

Ernaux’s novel Happening inspired Audrey Diwan’s Venice Lion-winning title of the same name.

French writer Annie Ernaux, whose novel Happening inspired Audrey Diwan’s Venice Lion-winning film of the same name, has won the 2022 Nobel Prize in Literature.

The author, known for her semi-autobiographical books combining personal memory and social justice, is the first French woman to win the prestigious award.

Diwan worked closely with Ernaux while writing her screenplay. The drama is based on Ernaux’s own experience in 1960s France when abortions were illegal.

The film’s sales agent Wild Bunch International called Ernaux an...

In case you didn’t know this: Nobel Prize winners are required to give a lecture in order to receive their prize money. Bob Dylan, the winner of the 2016 Nobel Prize for Literature, has finally given his required talk. And you can listen to it in the above video. The prize was announced in October of last year, and Dylan took weeks to accept the honor, maybe because “the news about the Nobel Prize left me speechless,” as he told the Swedish Academy in his acceptance, according to a Nobel Foundation press release. Recent winners include Svetlana Alexievich in 2015, Patrick Modiano...

And the 2016 Nobel Prize for Literature goes to… Bob Dylan!

That’s right — the 75-year-old folk singer was awarded literature’s biggest prize in Stockholm on Thursday, “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.”

It’s a honor that’s traditionally given to novelists, poets, and short story writers — always for the lifetime of work, rather than for a single piece. It comes with just over $900,000 in prize money.

Announcement of the 2016 #NobelPrize in Literature https://t.co/VXayV4bvhC

— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 13, 2016

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The legendary musician, born Robert Allen Zimmerman in Minnesota,...

If your first reaction to novelist Patrick Modiano winning this year's Nobel Prize in Literature was to ask, "Who?," then congratulations, you're not French. Almost every announcement of the news has included the note that Modiano is quite obscure outside his home country, so you should feel no guilt for reading this explainer about who Modiano is and what his deal is.So, he's a novelist? Modiano has also written screenplays and children's books, but yes, novels are what he's mainly known for. His most famous work is 1978's Missing Person (Rue des Boutiques Obscures), a detective story that is one of only a handful of his books to have been translated into English. What's so great about him? In the words of the Nobel Academy, Modiano was awarded the prize "for the art of memory with which he has evoked the most ungraspable human destinies and uncovered the life-world...

Your newest winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature is French novelist Patrick Modiano. He's not especially well-known outside of France, but in the words of the Nobel committee, Modiano earned the prize "for the art of memory with which he has evoked the most ungraspable human destinies and uncovered the life-world of the occupation." Last year's winner was Alice Munro, whom you probably like more.

French novelist Patrick Modiano, whose previous awards include the Grand Prix du Roman (1972) and the Prix Goncourt (1978), has won this year's Nobel Prize in Literature. Modiano has co-written two screenplays based on his novels, Lacombe, Lucien (1973) with Louis Malle and Bon Voyage (2003) with Jean-Paul Rappeneau. Moshé Mizrahi directed an adaptation of Une jeunesse in 1983 and Patrice Leconte directed Le parfum d’Yvonne, based on Villa triste, in 1994. In 1974, Pauline Kael wrote of the screenplay for Lacombe, Lucien, the story of a teenager boy in Occupied France, that it "tries not to dramatize and not to comment." » - David Hudson...

French novelist Patrick Modiano, whose previous awards include the Grand Prix du Roman (1972) and the Prix Goncourt (1978), has won this year's Nobel Prize in Literature. Modiano has co-written two screenplays based on his novels, Lacombe, Lucien (1973) with Louis Malle and Bon Voyage (2003) with Jean-Paul Rappeneau. Moshé Mizrahi directed an adaptation of Une jeunesse in 1983 and Patrice Leconte directed Le parfum d’Yvonne, based on Villa triste, in 1994. In 1974, Pauline Kael wrote of the screenplay for Lacombe, Lucien, the story of a teenager boy in Occupied France, that it "tries not to dramatize and not to comment." » - David Hudson...

By Todd Garbarini

It has been said that if you want action films, look no further than Asian and American cinema; and no one makes a mystery or a satire like the British. The same can be said about the French when it comes to love stories, and while our Seine-strutting amis can also whip up slapstick comedies like few can (think Louis De Funes donning a beard, black hat, and impersonating a rabbi), they rarely fail to deliver captivating examples of both of these beloved genres.

Patrice Leconte, best known to American audiences for Monsieur Hire (1989) and The Hairdresser’s Husband (1990), gives us The Perfume of Yvonne (1994), now available on DVD from Severin Films. Based on the 1975 novel Villa Triste by Patrick Modiano, the film introduces us to Victor Chmara (Hippolyte Girardot of Manon of the Spring among many others), who is recalling the events that transpired in his...