Le Clezio: A Literary Topography of New Departures, Poetic Adventure and Sensual Ecstasy--The Man and His Works

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Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio was born in France in 1940 and spent his youth in Africa, France and England. His family had strong connections to Mauritius and its Anglo-French creole elite. This research study is the first to be released in English since LeClezio won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2008 . It discusses the man, his unique history and travels and the extraordinary production of 43 novels not to mention short stories, children's literature and journalism/criticism. Le Clezio has written magnificently of MesoAmerica, Black Africa, North Africa as well as France and urban civilization. An interpretative critical work has been need to develop Le Clezio's themes (crisis, urban decay, classical tribal life in Africa and America, ecology, globalization, the power and liberation of great cinema and others) and their context and importance in contemporary literature and life. The literary topography of Le Clezio , as cited by the Swedish Academy, is one of "New departures, poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy", it is also a topography of humility, pilgrimage and vision. As a young writer in the aftermath of existentialism, French colonial defeat, and the noveau roman he was described as "...a conjurer who tried to lift words above the degenerate level of everyday speech and restore to them the power to invoke an essential reality." His first novels [Interrogation, The Flood, Fever}dealt with crisis, trouble and urban fear. His work then became more ecologically engaged culminating in Desert (1980)a masterpiece of depiction and contrast as North Africans leave the desert to become unwanted immigrants in France. The ugliness and brutality of modern city life is contrasted with hopes and dreams of the migrants and their anguish for a lost irrecovable world. Many novels followed including Revolutions (2003) and L'Africain (2004). Le Clezio now divides his time between Alberquerque, Nice and Mauritius. "This study should prove of great interest to those involved with contemporary literary exploration...recommended for scholarly investigators and their libraries." Professor Marc Guillen, Sorbonne V1