Frenchman Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio Proclaimed 2008 Nobel Laureate in Literature

By Therese San Diego

photo credit: www.usatoday.com

France must be very proud to have another French Nobel Laureate in Literature who did not refuse to accept the award. Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio brings the 2008 Nobel Prize for Literature to his country after Jean-Paul Sartre in 1964, Claude Simon in 1985, and Chinese-born Gao Xingjian in 2000, though the first refused to accept the award because he believed that “a writer must refuse to allow himself to be transformed into an institution.”

Le Clézio, on the other hand, does not seem to mind being given this honor. In an interview with Nobelprize.org’s Editor-in-Chief, Adam Smith, he enthusiastically talked about his life and his works.

The French author was born in Nice on April 13, 1940. He started writing at a young age, writing in French though he also spoke in English. Le Clézio completed his undergraduate degree at the Institut d’Etudes Littéraires in 1963, his master’s degree at the University of Aix-en-Provence in 1964, and his doctoral thesis for the University of Perpignan in 1983. He also taught at universities in Bangkok, Boston, and Mexico City, among other places.

Having lived in different countries all over the world, Le Clézio says there is one place he considers home—Mauritius, the former French colony, which he calls “the place of [his] ancestors.” That was, however, not the place where he began his writing career.

At only eight years old, Le Clézio wrote his first two books, “Un Long Voyage” and “Oradi Noir,” in the course of a month-long trip to Nigeria where his father was relocated as a doctor during World War II. Though he started writing as a child, it was not until 1963, at the age of 23, that he released his debut novel, “Le Procès-Verbal,” which was also published in English (“Interrogation”) the following year. This book won him the Theophraste Renaudot prize.

Le Clézio earned more awards in the following years, including the Prix Larbaud in 1972, the Grand Prix Paul Morand de l'Académie Française in 1980, the Grand Prix Jean Giono in 1997, the Prix Prince de Monaco in 1998, and the Stig Dagermanpriset in 2008.

The multi-award winning author’s works, comprised of about thirty novels, short story collections and essays, are said to be “mystical,” “ecological” and “philosophical,” but the author says that it is difficult for him to describe them. In an interview with the magazine Label France, Le Clézio said, “If I had to assess my books I would say that they are what are most like me. In other words, for me it’s less a matter of expressing ideas than expressing what I am and what I believe in. When I write I am primarily trying to translate my relationship to the everyday, to events.”

Le Clézio’s works reveal his ideals, inspiring readers to ponder on the things happening around them, as well. He added, “We live in a troubled era in which we are bombarded by a chaos of ideas and images. The role of literature today is perhaps to echo this chaos.”

The writer recalls the works of Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus and François Mauriac, remembering their “committed essays which showed the way” as opposed to contemporary works, which he refers to as “a literature of despair.” He says, “We no longer have the presumptuousness to believe, as they did in Sartre’s day, that a novel can change the world. Today, writers can only record their political impotence.”

It is evident, though, that the world believes in Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio. Through his works that mirror the issues of the present and reflect his views, perhaps this year’s Nobel Laureate in Literature can be a powerful force that can influence people to move towards finding solutions to the troubles of our time.