Modiano's Nobel Prize triggers memories for Chinese translator

French writer Patrick Modiano's recent Nobel Prize in Literature reopened old sores for Xue Lihua, the first person to translate Modiano's best known novel Rue des Boutiques Obscures into Chinese in book form.

In that book, published some 30 years ago, the translator's name was confused and the error left Xue permanently disappointed as the book's copyright has been transferred, so the mistake is unlikely to be corrected.

Now in his 80s, Xue moved to France to live at the end of 1985, and said he translated the novel a few months before that.