Award of the Nobel Prize in Literature to M. Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio – Statement by M. Bernard Kouchner, Minister of Foreign and European Affairs
Paris, 9 October 2008
I was thrilled to learn that the Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded to Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio.
This magnificent honour rewards one of the most unique collections of novels of our time, some of the most demanding and most inventive writing. It wholly reflects the exceptional work of a writer who is a “citizen of the world”, who travels, as he writes, “to understand who I am and who the others are.”
From Albuquerque to Seoul, from New York to Panama, from London to Lagos, Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio lives and travels in, crosses through and loves a large number of countries, peoples, civilizations and cultures. He has succeeded in sharing with his readers his passion for Mexico and the wealth of her pre-Columbian past.
By honouring him, the Nobel Prize jury pays tribute to an author who, since “Le procès-verbal” [published in English under the title “The Interrogation”], has built up a collection of work with universal overtones. Through him, the most radiant humanist values are celebrated, the very ones that France promotes within the international community: rejection of injustice and of oppression, tolerance, respect for individual freedoms and for minority rights, the essential role of culture, the fulfilment of the individual…
Today, through Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio and thanks to him, all contemporary French literature is honoured.
I extend to him my most sincere and warmest congratulations./.