Thursday 9 October 2008

Nobel Prize for Literature: Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio (updated)

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Update (8 October 2009): German news report that Romanian-born German author Herta Müller wins the 2009 Nobel Prize for Literature. Yet another European...

And to be honest: I am German, but I have never heard of her before.

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This article is on the 2008 Nobel Prize for Literature. You can find the 2009 NP committee here.
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For the fifth time in a row, the Nobel Prize for Literature has been received by a European.

After Austria, the UK, Turkey and again the UK, this year's prize goes to France. 1940-born Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio has received the award, and the jury remarks:
"author of new departures, poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy, explorer of a humanity beyond and below the reigning civilization"
La Grande Nation, again the Great Nation, has proven itself and the rest of the world its qualities as a centre of culture...

You ask why I am writing about this? - Because I am surprised to see yet another European in the list.

Kind of boring, isn't it?


Update:

Actually, I was quite happy that several commentators in yesterday's news and culture programmes (merci, ARTE) were mentioning that Le Clézio despite receiving the Nobel Prize is not the most well known French author, and that the world was split in two parts - one larger that never heard about him before and a small one that "knew".

Until yesterday, I belonged to the larger group...

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

(yawn)

But glad to hear you're feeling better.

Anonymous said...

YAWN? YAWN? Do mean my precious post or the fact that a French has won? :-D

Anonymous said...

I won't dare question the integrity of the precious post :). The "yawn" was completely in reference to the:

I am surprised to see yet another European in the list. Kind of boring, isn't it?

Yeap. (Although at least it's not the same European country, year in, year out).

Unknown said...

Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio wins the 2008 Nobel Prize for Literature, and across the anglophone world there are joyful, rooftop-to-rooftop cheers of ‘who?’ and ‘why have I never heard of him?’ Speaking for myself, I was sufficiently ashamed of my ignorance to at least rootle around online a little, to see (for instance) which of Le Clézio’s many books might be worth picking up.

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Anonymous said...

he deserved it for his sensual tone in literature

www.arelis.gr
it contains erotonomicon that was forbidden in greece due to its sexuality and sensuality
and the poems new york olympia and exhibition of orthodromic retrospection