French writer Le Clezio wins Nobel for literature

STOCKHOLM, Sweden — France's Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio won the 2008 Nobel Prize in literature on Thursday for works characterized by "poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy" and focused on the environment, especially the desert.

Le Clezio, 68, is the first French writer to win the prestigious award since Chinese-born Frenchman Gao Xingjian was honored in 2000 and the 14th since the Nobel Prizes began in 1901.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy hailed Le Clezio's win as a sign of France's worldwide cultural influence.

"A child of Mauritius and Nigeria, a teenager in Nice, a nomad of the American and African deserts, Jean-Marie Le Clezio is a citizen of the world, the son of all continents and cultures," Sarkozy said. "A great traveler, he embodies the influence of France, its culture and its values in a globalized world."

Le Clezio made his breakthrough as a novelist with "Desert" in 1980, a work the academy said "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."

It describes the ordeal of Lalla, a woman from the Tuareg nomadic tribe of the Sahara Desert, as she adapts to civilization imposed by colonial France.

The Swedish Academy said Le Clezio from early on "stood out as an ecologically engaged author, an orientation that is accentuated with the novels 'Terra Amata,' 'The Book of Flights,' 'War' and 'The Giants.' "

The decision was in line with the Swedish Academy's recent picks of European authors and followed comments last week by Academy Permanent Secretary Horace Engdahl that the United States is too insular and ignorant to challenge Europe as the center of the literary world. The comments ignited a fierce reaction across the Atlantic, where the head of the U.S. National Book Foundation offered to send Engdahl a reading list.

Since Japanese writer Kenzaburo Oe won the award in 1994, the selections have had a distinctly European flavor. Since then 12 Europeans, including Le Clezio and last year's winner Doris Lessing of Britain, have won the prize. The last U.S. writer to win the prize was Toni Morrison in 1993.

Le Clezio has spent much time living in New Mexico in recent years. He has long shied away from public life and often traveled, especially to the world's deserts. The academy said he and his Moroccan wife, Jemia, divide their time among Albuquerque, N.M., Mauritius and Nice.

He has published several dozen books, including novels, essays and children's books. His most famous works are tales of nomads, meditations on the desert and childhood memories. He has also explored the mythologies of Native Americans.

The academy said Le Clezio's long stays in Mexico and Central America in the mid-70s had a decisive influence on his work.

Born in Nice in 1940, Le Clezio was 8 when his family moved to Nigeria, where his father had been a doctor during World War II. They returned to France in 1950. He studied English at Bristol University in 1958-59 and completed his undergraduate degree at the Institut d'etudes Litteraires in Nice. He went on to earn a master's degree at the University of Aix-en-Provence in 1964 and wrote a doctoral thesis on Mexico's early history at the University of Perpignan in 1983.

Le Clezio has taught at universities in Bangkok; Mexico City; Boston; Austin, Texas; and Albuquerque among other places, the academy said.

Besides the $1.4 million check, Le Clezio will also receive a gold medal and be invited to lecture at the academy's headquarters in Stockholm's Old Town.