STOCKHOLM, Sweden - France's Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio won the 2008 Nobel Prize in literature on Thursday for works characterized by "poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy" and focused on the environment, especially the desert.
Le Clezio, 68, is the first French writer to win the prestigious award since Chinese-born Frenchman Gao Xingjian was honored in 2000.
The decision was in line with the Swedish Academy's recent picks of European authors. Last year's prize went to Doris Lessing of Britain.
The academy called Le Clezio an "author of new departures, poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy, explorer of a humanity beyond and below the reigning civilization."
Le Clezio made his breakthrough as a novelist with "Desert," in 1980, a work the academy said "contains magnificent images of a lost culture in the North African desert contrasted with a depiction of Europe seen through the eyes of unwanted immigrants."
That novel, which also won Le Clezio a prize from the French Academy, is considered a masterpiece. It describes the ordeal of Lalla, a woman from the Tuareg nomadic tribe of the Sahara Desert, as she adapts to civilization imposed by colonial France at the beginning of the 20th century.
The Swedish Academy said Le Clezio from early on "stood out as an ecologically engaged author, an orientation that is accentuated with the novels Terra Amata,' The Book of Flights,' War' and 'The Giants.' "
Le Clezio has spent much of his time living in New Mexico in recent years.
He has long shied away from public life, spending much of his time traveling, often in the world's various deserts.
He has published several dozen books, including novels and essays. The most famous are tales of nomads, mediations on the desert and childhood memories. He has also explored the mythologies of native Americans, who have long fascinated him.
Academy Permanent Secretary Horace Engdahl called Le Clezio a writer of great diversity."He has gone through many different phases of his development as a writer and has come to include other civilizations, other modes of living than the Western, in his writing," Engdahl said.
Asked how he thought the prize would be received in the United States, given Engdahl's recent controversial comments about American literature, he said he had no idea.
"I'm not aware that there are today any anti-French sentiments in the U.S. And apart from that, Le Clezio, is a cosmopolitan. He lives part of the year in New Mexico," Engdahl said.
"He's not a particularly French writer if you look at him from a strictly cultural point of view. So I don't think this choice will give rise to any anti-French comments," he said. "I would be very sad if that was the case."
Since Japanese writer Kenzaburo Oe won the award in 1994, the selections have had a distinctly European flavor. Since then 12 Europeans, including Le Clezio, have won the prize. The last U.S. writer to win the prize was Toni Morrison in 1993.
Appearing on France Inter radio Thursday to promote a new book shortly before the prize was announced, Le Clezio was asked if he thought he might win a possible Nobel.
"Sure, why not," he replied. "When you're a writer you always believe in literary prizes."
Le Clezio said a Nobel "was something that makes you rebound, that gives you the desire to keep writing ... We write to be read, we write to have responses, and that is a response."
In an interview with news magazine Label France in 2001, Le Clezio said literature was a "means of reminding people of this tragedy and bringing it back to center stage."
Le Clezio was quoted as saying that "when I write I am primarily trying to translate my relationship to the everyday, to events.
Le Clezio was born in Nice in 1940 and at eight the family moved to Nigeria, where his father had been a doctor during World War II. They returned to France in 1950.
His most recent works include 2007's "Ballaciner," a work the academy called a "deeply personal essay about the history of the art of film and the importance of film" in his life.
His books have also included several tales for children, including 1980's "Lullaby" and "Balaabilou" in 1985.
In addition to the 10 million kronor ($1.4 million) check, Le Clezio will also receive a gold medal and be invited to give a lecture at the academy's headquarters in Stockholm's Old Town.
The Nobel Prize in literature is handed out in Stockholm on Dec. 10 - the anniversary of Nobel's death in 1896 - along with the awards in medicine, chemistry, physics and economics. The Nobel Peace Prize is presented in Oslo, Norway.
SECOND STORY:
STOCKHOLM/PARIS (Reuters) - French author Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio, a globetrotting novelist hailed as a child of all continents, won the Nobel prize for literature on Thursday.
The Swedish Academy, which decides the winner of the coveted 10 million Swedish crown ($1.4 million) prize, praised the 68-year-old's adventurous novels, essays and children's books.
"His works have a cosmopolitan character. Frenchman, yes, but more so a traveller, a citizen of the world, a nomad," Horace Engdahl, permanent secretary of the Academy, told a news conference to announce the laureate.
Underlining his international credentials, Le Clezio, who describes himself as French and Mauritian, answered questions in English, French and Spanish at a Paris press conference.
"Some kind of incredulity, some kind of awe, then some kind of enjoyment and mirth," he said, describing how he felt when he heard the news. Questioned about what he would do with the prize money, he added: "I have debts. I'm going to pay them."
Engdahl stirred up resentment among some U.S. authors and critics in the run-up to this year's announcement by saying American writers were too insular and did not participate in the "big dialogue" of literature. The last American to win the literature Nobel was novelist Toni Morrison in 1993.
When asked about the issue, Le Clezio replied: "I don't think you can say American literature is any one thing, because it takes many forms."
He added that Philip Roth, a perennial favourite among bookmakers to scoop the Nobel, would be a worthy winner.
"He will certainly win this prize, and even if he doesn't he will remain a very great writer."
GLOBETROTTER
Nice-born Le Clezio moved to Nigeria with his family at the age of eight. He wrote his first works -- "Un Long Voyage" and "Oradi Noir" -- during the month-long journey.
According to the Academy's Web site, he studied English at a British university and taught at institutions in Bangkok, Mexico City, Boston, Austin and Albuquerque, among others.
Le Clezio also spent long periods in Mexico and Central America and married a Moroccan woman in 1975. Since the 1990s he and his wife have shared their time between Albuquerque in New Mexico, the island of Mauritius and Nice, the Academy added.
The author said he believed French culture was a melting pot of influences.
"The French language is a result of a mix of cultures. It has received contributions from every corner of the world. That is what is wonderful about French culture. It is a place of encounters."
Le Clezio's first novel was "Le proces-verbal" (The Interrogation), written when he was 23. It went on to win the Renaudot prize in France.
Seen as an experimental writer in the 1960s, Le Clezio was preoccupied by themes including the environment and childhood.
His big breakthrough came in 1980 with "Desert," which the Academy said "contains magnificent images of a lost culture in the North African desert, contrasted with a depiction of Europe seen through the eyes of unwanted immigrants."
French President Nicolas Sarkozy hailed the award.
"A child of Mauritius and Nigeria, a teenager in Nice, a nomad of the American and African deserts, Jean-Marie Le Clezio is a citizen of the world, a child of all continents and of all cultures," Sarkozy said in a statement.
"A great traveller, he embodies the global reach of France's culture and values in a globalised world."
All but one of the prizes were established in the will of 19th century dynamite tycoon Alfred Nobel and have been handed out since 1901. The economics award was established by Sweden's central bank in 1968.
(Additional reporting by Adam Cox in Stockholm, Mike Collett-White in London and Estelle Shirbon in Paris)
(Writing by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)
WINNERS OF NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE SINCE 1960
-2008: Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio, France.
- 2007: Doris Lessing, Britain.
- 2006: Orhan Pamuk, Turkey.
- 2005: Harold Pinter, Britain.
- 2004: Elfriede Jelinek, Austria.
- 2003: J.M. Coetzee, South Africa.
- 2002: Imre Kertesz, Hungary.
- 2001: V.S. Naipaul, Trinidad-born Briton.
- 2000: Gao Xingjian, Chinese-born French.
- 1999: Guenter Grass, Germany.
- 1998: Jose Saramago, Portugal.
- 1997: Dario Fo, Italy.
- 1996: Wislawa Szymborska, Poland.
- 1995: Seamus Heaney, Ireland.
- 1994: Kenzaburo Oe, Japan.
- 1993: Toni Morrison, United States.
- 1992: Derek Walcott, St. Lucia.
- 1991: Nadine Gordimer, South Africa.
- 1990: Octavio Paz, Mexico.
- 1989: Camilo Jose Cela, Spain.
- 1988: Naguib Mahfouz, Egypt.
- 1987: Joseph Brodsky, Russian-born American.
- 1986: Wole Soyinka, Nigeria.
- 1985: Claude Simon, France.
- 1984: Jaroslav Seifert, Czechoslovakia.
- 1983: William Golding, Britain.
- 1982: Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Colombia.
- 1981: Elias Canetti, Bulgarian-born Briton.
- 1980: Czeslaw Milosz, Polish-born American.
- 1979: Odysseus Elytis, Greece.
- 1978: Isaac Bashevis Singer, Polish-born American.
- 1977: Vicente Aleixandre, Spain.
- 1976: Saul Bellow, Canadian-born American.
- 1975: Eugenio Montale, Italy.
- 1974: Eyvind Johnson and Harry Martinson, Sweden.
- 1973: Patrick White, British-born Australian.
- 1972: Heinrich Boell, West Germany.
- 1971: Pablo Neruda, Chile.
- 1970: Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Russia.
- 1969: Samuel Beckett, Ireland.
- 1968: Yasunari Kawabata, Japan.
- 1967: Miguel A. Asturias, Guatemala.
- 1966: Shmuel Y. Agnon, Polish-born Israeli, and Nelly Sachs, German-born Swede.
- 1965: Mikhail Sholokhov, Russia.
- 1964: Jean-Paul Sartre, France (declined award).
- 1963: Giorgos Seferis, Turkish-born Greek.
- 1962: John Steinbeck, United States.
- 1961: Ivo Andric, Yugoslavia.
- 1960: Saint-John Perse, Guadeloupe
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