Nobel Prize Goes to Historical Novelist

Margaret · Post by **Margaret** » Mon October 20th, 2008, 12:55 am

Guess what! The 2008 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded this month to Jean-Marie Le Clézio, at least four of whose major novels are historical. I have to confess, I had not previously heard of him, and had to add listings for his historical novels to http://www.HistoricalNovels.info. He's a French author who spend much of his childhood in Nigeria, where his father worked as a doctor.

Desert and The Prospector are set in northern Africa in the pre-WWII years. Desert is about a Tuareg woman, which sounds quite interesting (the Tuaregs are the "blue" nomads of the Sahara).

Onitsha is set in Nigeria during the WWII years.

Wandering Star is also set during the WWII years. It's about a Jewish girl who escapes from the Nazis and migrates to Israel and a Palestinian girl who grows up in the refugee camps there. This one seems to be the most readily available of his novels, some of which are going for appallingly high prices on Amazon. But they are all, no doubt, going to be rushed into new editions now.

diamondlil · Post by **diamondlil** » Mon October 20th, 2008, 2:47 am

I have a loose connection to Nigeria, so I would definitely be interested in reading a couple of those. My library does not have any of his books at all unfortunately.

Ash · Post by **Ash** » Mon October 20th, 2008, 3:11 am

Thanks for that info; the only thing we are getting here is that some foriegner who no one knows about won the prize. I'd be interested in a couple of those - are they written in English and if not, have they been translated?

Alaric · Post by **Alaric** » Mon October 20th, 2008, 3:25 am

I've always wondered this, exactly what does one have to do to get a Nobel Prize in Literature?

annis · Post by **annis** » Mon October 20th, 2008, 4:52 am

This is a summary of the selection process, Alaric
http://www.svenskaakademien.se/web/How_ ... hosen.aspx

Margaret · Post by **Margaret** » Mon October 20th, 2008, 9:38 pm

I think it's safe to assume all of Le Clézio's books that I named above are going to become readily available as soon as his publishers get the presses geared up to roll. Put him at the bottom of your TBR list (or somewhere in the middle if it's like mine), and by the time you get there, his books will no doubt be available pretty much throughout the world.

There's some interesting information about him in the New York Times article about the Nobel award: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/10/books ... ref=slogin.

annis · Post by **annis** » Mon October 20th, 2008, 10:07 pm

thanks for the article, Margaret, he sounds like a very interesting person, and i guess we haven't heard of him till now because his work hasn't been available in English translation.

The frustration of all that great HF out there that's not available in English! I'd love to read Robert Merle's "Fortune de France" series recreating 16th and 17th century France through the eyes of a fictitious Protestant doctor turned spy. However he went so far as to write it in the French of the period, apparently making it virtually untranslatable.