One of the most translated modern French authors, whose first novel appeared when he was only 23 years old. Due to his early experimentalist approach to novel, Le Clézio has been counted among the avant-garde writers, but actually his work is difficult to pin down. Le Clézio's themes are cross-cultural. He moves freely, without restriction, from one continent to another, fusing ideas and images from different kinds of literature and culture. Le Clézio was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2008.
"La guerre a commencé. Personne ne sait plus où, ni comment, mais c'est ainsi. Elle est derrière la tête et elle souffle. La guerre des crimes et des insultes, la furie des regards, l'explosion de la pensée des cerveaux. Elle est là, ouverte sur le monde, elle le couvre de son réseau de fils électriques, Chaque seconde, elle progresse, elle arrache quelque chose et le réduit en cendres." (from La Guerre, 1970)
Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio was born in Nice in 1940. Le Clézio's father, born in Mauritius, was a doctor, who moved from England to British Guyana, and then to Nigeria. Before the family was reunited, he lived years in Africa.
Le Clézio was raised in France. His early childhood Le Clézio spent in Roquebillière, a small village near Nice. At the age of eight Le Clézio started to write poetry and read comics. In 1947 he traveled to Nigeria with his mother and brother, spending there a happy year without school. Later the author depicted his childhood in the semi-autobiographical novel Onitsha (1991), in which a young boy sails with his mother to Africa, where his English father is chasing his own dreams.
Le Clézio was educated at schools in Nice, where his mother settled during the war. In 1957 Le Clézio passed his baccalauréat in literature and philosophy. He then studied at the Bristol University, at the University of London, and Institut d'Études Littéraires in Nice. In 1964 he received his M.A. from the University of Aix-en-Provence. Le Clézio obtained his doctoral degree from the University of Perpignan.
Le Clézio married in 1960 Rosalie Piquemal, half-French, half-Polish; they had one daughter. After divorce Le Clézio remarried. From this marriage he has also one daughter.
As a writer Le Clézio made his breakthrough with his first novel, Le procès-verbal (1963), which was awarded the Théophraste Renaudot Prize. The work introduced one of his central themes, the flight from commonly accepted ways of thought into extreme states of mind. Adam Pollo, the protagonist, is a sensitive youg man, who wanders around the town, much like a stray dog, and after making an agitated speech to an apathetic crowd eventually ends up in a mental hospital for a period. The mood of the novel has been compared to that of Camus's Stranger and Sartre's Naisea.
Le Clézio's writing is simultaneously clear and intensive, impressionistic and controlled, nostalgic and contemporary. In an interview Le Clézio once said, that his favorite novelist are Stevenson and Joyce – noteworthy both exiled writers. Often his protagonists are loners, who try to find ways to cope with the modern life and technology, or come into conflict with urban surroundings.
Le procès-verbal was soon translated into several languages, among others into Finnish. In spite of his international fame, Le Clézio chose to stay away from fashionable literary circles, saying in an article in 1965: "Not yet sure if writing is a good way of expression." He taught at a Buddhist University in Thailand in 1966-67, at the University of Mexico, and at the Boston University, University of Texas, Austin, and the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. From 1973 Le Clézio and his Moroccan wife Jemia divided their time between France, the U.S. and the island of Mauritius; Le Clézio has called Mauritius his "little fatherland". Le Clézio has also traveled in Nigeria and Japan and published translations of Mayan sacred texts. The last years Le Clézio has lived mainly in New Mexico.
Through Le Clézio's novels the sun and the sea, light and water, are recurrent images. From 1969 to 1973 Le Clézio lived among the Embera Indians in Panama. Haï (1971), written during this period, is a lyrical account of the author's experience which, as he has confessed, changed his whole life. On the whole, the natural environment, animate and inanimate, forms a kind of philosophical, unifying ground for Le Clézio's themes.
Le Clézio's constant travels are reflected in the settings of his books. Through his own experience he has described the clash of cultures, and the unequal side of globalization, the domination of Western rationalism. In Désert (1980), which received the Grand Prix Paul Morand, a young nomad woman, Lalla, from the Sahara becomes a famous photo model, but she returns to the desert to give birth to her child. A parallel story tells of the crushing of the Tuaregs in the beginning of the 20th century by the French colonizers.
For further reading: Conversations avec J.-M. G. Le Clézio by P. Lhoste (1971); World Authors 1950-1970, ed. by John Wakeman (1975); J.-M. G. Le Clézio by Jennifer Waelti-Walters (1977); Contemporary World Writers, ed. by Tracy Chevalier (1993); Le Clézio ou la quête du désert by Simone Domange (1993); Encyclopedia of World Literature in the 20th Century, vol. 3, ed. by Steven R. Serafin (1999) - For further information: Intersected Pasts and Problematic Futures by Karen D. Levy
Selecter works:
- Le Procès-Verbal, 1963 - The Interrogation (tr. Daphne Woodward, 1964) - Raportti Aatamista (suom. Olli-Matti Ronimus)
- Le Jour où Beaumont fit connaissance avec sa douleur, 1964
- La Fièvre, 1965 - Fever (tr. Daphne Woodward, 1966) - Kuume (suom. Leila Adler)
- Le Déluge, 1966 - The Flood (tr. Peter Green, 1968)
- L'Extase matérielle, 1966
- Terra amata, 1968 - Terra Amata (tr. Barbara Bray, 1969)
- Le Livre des fuites, 1969 - The Book of Flights (tr. Simon Watson Taylor, 1972)
- La Guerre, 1970 - War (tr. 1973)
- Haï, 1971
- Les Géants, 1973 - The Giants (tr. Simon Watson Taylor, 1975)
- Mydriase, 1973
- Voyages de l'autre côté, 1975
- translator: Les Prophéties du chilam Balam, 1976
- Voyage aux pays des arbres, 1978
- L'Inconnu sur la terre, 1978
- Vers les Icebergs, 1978
- Mondo et autres histoires, 1978 - film: Mondo (1996), dir. by Tony Gatlif, starring Ovidiu Balan, Philippe Petit, Pierrette Fesch, Jerry Smith
- Désert, 1980 - Autiomaa (suom. Marjatta Ecaré)
- Trois Villes saintes, 1980
- Lullaby, 1980
- La Ronde et autres faits divers, 1982 - The Round & Other Cold Hard Facts = La ronde et autres faits divers (translated by C. Dickson)
- Celui qui'n avait jamais vu la mer; La Montagne du dieu vivant, 1984
- translator: Relation de Michocan, 1984
- Le Chercheur d'or, 1985 - The Prospector (tr. by Carol Marks)
- Villa aurore; Orlamonde, 1985
- Balaabilou, 1985
- Voyage à Rodrigues, 1986
- Les Années Cannes, 1987
- Le Rêve mexicain, ou, La Pensée interrompue, 1988 - Mexican Dream (tr. by Teresa Lavender Fagan)
- Printemps et autres saisons: nouvelles, 1989
- Sirandanes; Un Petit Lexique de la langue créole et des oiseaux, 1990
- Onitsha, 1991 - Onitsha (tr. by Alison Anderson) - Kaupunki nimeltä Onitsha (suom. Annikki Suni)
- Pawana, 1992
- Étoile errante, 1992 - Wandering Star (tr. by C. Dickson) - Harhaileva tähti (suom. Annikki Suni)
- Diego et Frida, 1993
- La Quarantaine, 1995
- In the Eye of the Sun: Mexican Fiestas, 1996 (with Geoff Winningham)
- Poisson d'or, 1997
- La fête chantée, 1997
- Enfances, 1997 (with Christophe Kuhn)
- Hasard suivi de Angoli Mala, 1999
- Fantômes dans la rue, 2000
- Coeur brûlé et autres romances, 2000
- Révolutions, 2003
- Mondo et autres histoires, 2005
- Ourania, 2006
- Raga: approche du continent invisible, 2006
- Ballaciner, 2007
- Ritournelle de la faim, 2008
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