Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio has become the 14th French writer to won the Nobel Prize in literature, being praised by the Swedish Academy as an “author of new departures, poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy, explorer of a humanity beyond and below the reigning civilization.”

The Swedish Academy has named its 2008 recipient of the Nobel Prize in literature and it is French-born, dual-citizenship holding, globetrotting writer Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio, 68.

The academy lauded Le Clézio’s focus on the environment, particularly the desert, which has inspired him greatly in his writing. Then again, Le Clezio has led the life of an adventurer, traveling the world, spending ample amounts of time in the deserts of the world and recently settling in New Mexico.

Born in 1940, Le Clézio also holds Mauritian citizenship. In the 1970s, he lived for long periods of time in Mexico and Central America and this, the academy noted, left an indelible mark on his work.

A lover of nature, the academy said Le Clézio was special from early on in his career as a writer, standing out “as an ecologically engaged author, an orientation that is accentuated with the novels ‘Terra Amata,’ ‘The Book of Flights,’ ‘War’ and ‘The Giants.’”

The cross-cultural citizen and writer, as described by the academy, is the 14th French citizen to win the prestigious award since the Nobel Prizes began in 1901. Chinese-born Frenchman Gao Xingjian is the previous writer to have received the honor, in 2000.

Le Clézio has published over thirty works, including novels, essays and children’s books. He first attained critical acclaim in 1980 with the novel “Désert,” which received a prize from the French Academy.

Le Clézio and his Moroccan wife Jemia currently split their time between Albuquerque, N. M., the writer’s native Mauritius and Nice, France, according to the academy.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy commended Le Clezio for his literary triumph and used choice words to describe the significance this has for France and French culture. Characterizing Le Clézio as a child of Mauritius and Nigeria, a teenager in Nice and a nomad of the American and African deserts, Sarkozy said the Nobel Laureate is “a citizen of the world, the son of all continents and cultures” who “embodies the influence of France, its culture and its values in a globalized world.”

The Nobel Prizes are handed out annually on December 10, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death in 1896. Banquets are also held. This year, the Nobel Prizes in literature, chemistry, economics, medicine and physics will be presented in Stockholm, while the Nobel Peace Prize will be presented in Oslo, Norway.

French writers to have previously received the Nobel Prize for literature are Sully Prudhomme, Frédéric Mistral, Romain Rolland, Anatole France, Henri Bergson, Roger Martin du Gard, André Gide, André Gide, François Mauriac, Albert Camus, Saint-John Perse, Jean-Paul Sartre, who declined the prize, and Claude Simon.