French author Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio wins Nobel Prize in Literature

His definitive breakthrough as a novelist came with ‘Désert’ (1980), for which he received a prize from the French Academy. This work 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. The main character, the Algerian guest worker Lalla, is a utopian antithesis to the ugliness and brutality of European society. During the same period, Le Clézio published the meditative essay collections ‘L’extase matérielle’ (1967), ‘Mydriase’ (1973) and ‘Haï’ (1971), the last of which shows influences from Indian culture. Long stays in Mexico and Central America in the period 1970 to 1974 were of decisive significance for his work, and he left the big cites in search of a new spiritual reality in the contact with the Indians.... ‘Le cercheur d’or’ (1985; ‘The Prospector,’ 1993) treats material from the islands of the Indian Ocean in the spirit of the adventure story. In later years the author’s attraction to the dream of earthly paradise is apparent in books such as ‘Ourania’ (2005) and ‘Raga: approche du continent invisible’ (2006).... The emphasis in Le Clézio’s work has increasingly moved in the direction of an exploration of the world of childhood and of his own family history. This development began with ‘Onitsha’ (1991; ‘Onitsha,’ 1997), continued more explicitly with ‘La quarantaine’ (1995) and has culminated in ‘Révolutions’ (2003) and ‘L’Africain’ (2004).