Desert

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

JEAN-MARIE GUSTAVE LE CLÉZIO, winner of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Literature, was born on April 13th, 1940 in Nice, a descendant of a family from Brittany that immigrated to Mauritius in the eighteenth century. He pursued his undergraduate studies at the Institut d’Études Littéraires in Nice and earned his doctoral degree in early Mexican history from the University of Perpignan. His first novel, Le procès-verbal (The Interrogation), won the Prix Renaudot in 1963 and established his reputation as one of France’s preeminent contemporary writers. He was awarded the Grand Prix Paul Morand by the Académie Française in 1980 for his novel Désert. He has published more than forty works of fiction and anthropology, as well as several books for children. Mr. Le Clézio has lived in France, Mauritius, Thailand, Mexico, Panama, the United States, and England. He and his wife currently divide their time between New Mexico, Nice, and the island of Mauritius.