Frenchman Le Clezio has been bestowed with the Nobel Prize for literature for the year 2008.
Describing Le Clezio, 68, as an “author of new departures, poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy, explorer of a humanity beyond and below the reigning civilization”, the Swedish Academy declared the award on Thursday.
Horace Engdahl- secretary, the Nobel Committee for Literature, had triggered a literary controversy last month when in a statement to the Associated Press, he commented that American literature was “too insulated, too insular”. On top of it, he described American writers as “too sensitive to trends in their own mass culture.”
The last time an American won the coveted prize was way back in 1993, when Toni Morrison was conferred with the award. Philip Roth, Thomas Pynchon and Don DeLillo have since then been named as contenders but have not won the award.
After allegations about an anti-American bias surfaced, Engdahl pruned down his comments and expressed the sentiment that the prestigious award was not a sort of contest between nations, but an award to individual authors for excellence in their field.
As far as his views on Le Clezio’s works are concerned, he said, “Le Clezio’s works have a cosmopolitan character. Frenchman, yes, but more so a traveller, a citizen of the world, a nomad.”
Le Clezio has above 30 novels, essays, story collections and translations to his credit. His books for children include Lullaby (1980) and Balaabilou (1985).
Only a few select ones from his collection of books are available from US publishers, although this is going to change in all likelihood. Testimony to this is the publication of The Round and Other Cold Hard Facts in 2003 and Onitsha in 1997, by the Nebraska Press.
The academy was all praise for Le Clezio’s novel Desert (1980), for its “magnificent images of a lost culture in the North African desert contrasted with a depiction of Europe seen through the eyes of unwanted immigrants.”
$1.4 million is the worth of the Nobel Prize.
It is worth mentioning here that in 1994, a survey conducted by Lire, a French literary magazine, revealed that 13% of the readers considered Le Clezio as the greatest French language writer alive.
Why not Esperanto, then!
The fact that a French-man won the Nobel Prize for Literature will certainly annoy the anglophiles. After all, everyone now accepts that English is the international language.
I apologise for the satire, but speak as a native English speaker. Then, if English is unacceptable, on grounds of linguistic imperialism, what about Esperanto?
Yes Esperanto was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for Literature, in the name of Icelandic poet Baldur Ragnarrson.
This is true. Esperanto does have its own original literature. Please check http://www.esperanto.net to confirm.
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