Le Clézio - Nobel Prize Winner in

Literature 2008

Exhibition 10 December 2008 - 31 January 2009 - Carolina Rediviva

J.M.G. Le Clézio, the Nobel Prize Laureate in Literature 2008, was celebrated by an

exhibition in the foyer of Carolina Rediviva. The exhibition, illustrating Le Clézio's works in

words and pictures right from his first novel in 1963, was opened on "Nobel's Day" and it

focused on four main themes.

“How can a book describe what’s going on in a city? It would take millions of pictures,

millions of sounds, to invent millions of new words …” (Conversation with Pierre

Lhoste, 1970)

Le Clézio's very first novels express an uncontrolled anxiety for modernity and our

mechanised Western civilisation, whose foremost symbol is the city. With its skyscrapers

of cement and iron, its noisy trafficked streets and its neon-lit supermarkets - the temples of

the consumer society - it feels like an inferno. Books like The Interrogation, The Flood and

War with their expressive titles, can be seen as rebellious screams against the aggression and

violence that people in urban environments are subjected to. It is however possible, if you

open your eyes in all this pervasive chaos, to find small miracles: the light bulb with its

perfect, softly rounded and fragile contours of glass is an example that crops up in many of

the Nobel laureate's works.

"I don't really know why, that's just the way it is: I am an Indian." (Haï, 1971)

A turning point came in the author's writing in the 1970s after a lengthy sojourn with Indians

in the rain forests of Panama. On the run from modern civilisation, hunting for inner peace, Le

Clézio confronts the Indian's culture and becomes a convert. It was, he writes in The Singing

Feast, "an experience that changed my whole live, my ideas about the world and art, my

attitude to my fellow human beings, my way of moving, eating, loving, sleeping, even my

dreams". A book by Antonin Artaud about the Tarahumara Indians in Mexico aroused Le

Clézio's interest - in a positive way - in these "primitive" and "instinctive" people. He

perceives them as bearers of wisdom living in harmony with the cosmos, beyond science and

rationalism. Even if he eventually "after maturing somewhat" was forced to renounce the

claim "I am an Indian", he has never ceased, in essays and translations of the ancient myths,

to stress that the Indians "have something to offer" materialistic Westerners.

"Beauty shines in life, pure and immediate. Beauty is a gift. It is not for sale."

(L’Inconnu sur la terre, 1978)

This is followed by years of calm, harmonious texts where observations of nature afford

freedom and safety. As no-one else, Le Clézio can portray the sun and light which now infuse

his books. "Why speak of anxiety, fear, ugliness? There is so much beauty in every moment

here, in the sky, the cliffs, the grass and the surface of the ocean", he writes in L’Inconnu sur

la terre ("The Unknown on Earth"). In an interview for Le Magazine littéraire in May 1985

he explains that although he doesn't do it consciously, he cannot write a novel without

thinking about the four elements: earth, fire, air and water. "For me they are" he says, "just as

important as human society". And the characters, who meet the reader in his books, live as

one with nature. They can still be enchanted by small gems - a beautifully formed shell, an

inconspicuous plant with a stunning scent or the colourful markings on a beetle. Often they

are children, very young women or old people. Often they exist on the periphery of

society. Often they are going somewhere. They are always figures of light. Lalla in

Désert ("Desert"), Daniel in the short story "The boy who had never seen the sea", Mondo in

the short story with the same name or Esther and Najma in Wandering Star are all significant

for this period where the desert plays an important role. The desert is the home of the nomads

and it represents the search for truth, for a lost innocence and a forgotten beginning.

"Actually I write to try and find out who I am. Seeking adventure..." (Conversation

with Carole Vantroys, 1994)

Searching for his own identity is the starting point of most of Le Clézio's later works: he is

hunting for his origins, his own history and that of his forebears. He recalls that he became

aware of this when he wrote La Quarantaine ("The Quarantine"). He has roots both

in Brittany and on the island of Mauritius, east of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean.

Autobiographically inspired novels such as Révolutions ("Revolutions") and therecently

published Ritournelle de la faim ("The Song of Hunger") and memoirs like L'Africain ("The

African"), which describes his meeting with his father in Nigeria at the age of eight, are

searches into his own past. But Le Clézio always links his own history inseparably with that

of the poor, the vulnerable and the forgotten. He travels, for example, to the small island of

Raga in Melanesia and finds "an atmosphere of abandonment and misery". It is the memory

of the most cruel slave trading in the world, which despite slavery long since being outlawed

in "civilised countries" was carried on by those people far away in the Pacific right into the

20th century. Far from fleeing his responsibility as a fellow human being, Le Clézio tells the

story of those who are never heard. It may well be this which is the common thread running

through the whole of his work.

Caroline Chevallier

The exhibition was produced by: Caroline Chevallier, exhibition manager. Lars Björdal and

Xtina Wootz: scenography and graphic design.

Bio-bibliography

1940

Born in Nice on 13 April.

1947 Boat journey to Africa to meet his father, a bush doctor who remained in

Nigeria during the second World War. Starts writing during the journey.

1958-1961 University studies in Bristol and London.

1962-1964 Literature studies in Nice and Aix-en-Provence.

1963 Debuts with Le Procès-Verbal (The Interrogation) – a modernist novel

awarded the Renaudot Prize (Sw. translation Rapport om Adam 1964).

1965 La Fièvre (Fever) – short stories (Sw. translation Febern 1966).

1966 Le Déluge (The Flood) – novel (Sw. translation Syndafloden 1968).

1967 L’Extase Matérielle – essay (Sw. translation Jordisk extas 1969) and Terra

Amata – novel (Sw. translation 1969). Unarmed national service in Thailand –

expelled for critical statement about child prostitution.

1968 Mexico, first encounter with Native American culture.

1969 Le Livre des fuites (The Book of Flights: An Adventure Story) – novel (Sw.

translation Flykternas bok 1970).

1970-1974 Stay among the Embera and Waunana Native Americans in the Panama

rainforest.

1970 La Guerre (War) – novel (Sw. translation Kriget 1974).

1971 Haï – essay (not translated).

1973 Les Géants (The Giants) – novel (no Sw. translation) and Mydriase – essay

(not translated).

1975 Voyages de l’autre coté (no Eng. translation) – short stories (Sw. translation

Färder i andra riken 1979). Marries Jemia, a Moroccan woman.

1976 Les Prophéties du Chilam Balam – translation into French of the Maya

people’s holy writings (not translated).

1978 L’Inconnu sur la terre – essay (not translated), Mondo and Other Stories –

short stories (Sw. translation Mondo och andra berättelser 1981) and Vers les

icebergs – essay about the Belgian author Henri Michaux (not translated).

1980 Désert (Desert) – novel (Sw. translation Öken 1984) and Trois villes saintes –

essay (not translated).

1981 Travels to the islands of Mauritius and Rodrigues in the Indian Ocean.

1982 La Ronde et autres faits divers – (The Round & Other Cold Hard Facts) –

short stories (no Sw. translation).

1983 Doctoral thesis in Perpignan on the early history of Mexico.

1984 Relation de Michoacan, translation into French of a Native American text from

the 16th century (not translated).

1985 Le Chercheur d’or (The Prospector) – novel (Sw. translation Skattsökaren

1990).

1986 Voyage à Rodrigues – travel diary (not translated).

1988 Le Rêve mexicain ou la pensée interrompue – essays (not translated).

1989 Printemps et autres saisons – short stories (not translated).

1990 Sirandanes – a collection of riddles from Mauritius in creole language (not

translated).

1991 Onitsha – novel (no Sw. translation).

1992 Étoile errante (Wandering Star) – novel (Sw. translation Vandrande stjärna

1995) and Pawana – novel (not translated).

1993 Diego et Frida – biography of the Mexican artists Diego Rivera and Frida

Kahlo (not translated).

1995 La Quarantaine – novel (not translated).

1997 Poisson d’or – novel (not translated), La Fête chantée – essays (not translated)

and Gens des nuages – travel diary (not translated). Travels with Jemia to the

desert in southern Morocco, in the traces of her forefathers the Tuareg.

1999 Hasard, suivi de Angoli Mala – two short novels (not translated).

2000 Cœur brûle et autres romances – short stories (not translated).

2003 Révolutions (no Eng. translation) – novel (Sw. translation Allt är vind 2007).

2004

L’Africain – memoirs (Sw. translation Afrikanen: porträtt av en far 2005).

2006 Ourania – novel (not translated) and Raga: Approche du continent invisible

(no Eng. translation), travelogue from Raga (Whitsun Island) in the island state

Vanuatu in the Pacific (Sw. translation Raga: att nalkas den osynliga

kontinenten 2008).

2007 Ballaciner – essay about cinematic art (not translated).

2008 Ritournelle de la faim – novel (not translated). Awarded the Stig Dagerman

Prize and the Nobel Prize for Literature.