Obviously, I was wrong. I had my money on Amos Oz, but that’s all right—I didn’t actually place the bet anyway. As it happened, according to Ladbrokes, there was a flurry of last minute wagers that made Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio the favorite to win. Makes one wonder whether or not word leaked since Le Clezio, while in the running yesterday morning, was not at all the top choice. But enough about the wagers; the real question has to do with what made Le Clezio the winner.
Praised by the Swedish Academy for his adventurous novels, essays and children’s literature, 68 year old French writer Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio won the $1.4 million prize today.
“His works have a cosmopolitan character. Frenchman, yes, but more so a traveler, a citizen of the world, a nomad,” Horace Engdahl, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, told a news conference to announce the laureate.
Le Clezio was born in Nice, moved to Nigeria with his family at the age of eight. He studied English at a British university and taught at institutions in Bangkok, Mexico City, Boston, Austin and Albuquerque, among others. He also spent long periods in Mexico and Central America and married a Moroccan woman in 1975. Since the 1990s he and his wife have shared their time between Albuquerque, the island of Mauritius and Nice, the Academy added.
His first novel was Le proces-verbal (The Interrogation), written when he was 23. It went on to win the Renaudot prize in France.
Seen as an experimental writer in the 1960s, Le Clezio was preoccupied by themes including the environment and childhood.
His big breakthrough came in 1980 with Desert, which the Academy said “contains magnificent images of a lost culture in the North African desert, contrasted with a depiction of Europe seen through the eyes of unwanted immigrants.”
I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve read absolutely nothing by Le Clezio, but Desert is now on my list of books to read—although there’s a 1-3 month wait according to Amazon.
