Vive Le Clézio!

French novelist Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio was named this year’s winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature on Thursday. Le Clézio, whom the Swedish Academy fancifully described as an “author of new departures, poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy, explorer of a humanity beyond and below the reigning civilisation,” has written more than 20 novels since the early age of 23.

AFP:

Asked at a press conference in Paris if he had any message for the world, Le Clezio said it would be to “keep asking yourself questions” and “to continue reading novels” because this was a good way to come to terms with the world.

“The novelist is not a philosopher, he is not a language technician, he is someone who writes, who asks himself questions,” said Le Clezio, adding that he “does not belong to any literary trend.

“I write because I love writing,” he said.

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AP photo / Michel Euler

Le lauréat: Nobel Prize winner Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio.