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When French novelist Patrick Modiano won the Nobel Prize for literature earlier in October, the country’s Culture Minister Fleur Pellerin said it showed the “influence and vitality of French literature in the eyes of the world”. But in an interview with Canal+ on Sunday, Pellerin was forced to admit that she had never read any of the acclaimed French author’s novels. “I haven’t had time to read anything in the last two years except for a lot of notes, legislative texts and news wires,” she said. Not many people outside France had ever heard of Modiano when he was presented with his prize. But in France, the culture minister is expected to be a beacon of the country’s cultural achievements. And for many, a complete ignorance of France’s top literary laureate is an unforgivable sin. Writer Tahar Ben Jelloun, who is on the jury for France’s prestigious Goncourt literature prize, told France Inter radio that Pellerin’s lack of knowledge was “shameful”. “It’s very sad,” he said. “It is a culture minister's political duty to delve into literature. It is not possible that she hasn’t read a single Modiano novel. It is lamentable, but then we live in an era when culture is not taken seriously at all.” Writing in the Huffington Post on Monday, commentator Claude Askolovitch said Pellerin’s failure to stay tuned in to the country’s literary achievements was “barbarian” and called on the minister to resign. | 
