Thursday, October 9, French novelist Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature, the Swedish Academy honouring him for his exquisite ability to depict civilizations that Europeans deem as being barbaric.

Throughout his career, Le Clezio has written over thirty works, including essays, story collections, translations on the subject of Indian mythology, prefaces and many reviews.

Regarded as a cosmopolitan, the French novelist has a rather eclectic style, having forayed into subjects such as insanity, language and writing only to go on to radically change his themes to less obscure ones: childhood, adolescence or traveling. The altering in his writing style managed to earn him a larger number of readers, while his 1980 novel “Désert” rendered him the first winner of the Grand Prix de Littérature Paul-Morand, awarded by the French Academy. Moreover, the aforementioned work established him as one of France’s leading modern writers, many being enthralled by his description of a lost culture in the North African desert, which was put in contrast with Europe, as seen through the eyes of undesired immigrants.

Le Clezio, 68, published his first work „Le Procès-Verbal” back in 1963, the novel earning him, that same year, the Théophraste-Renaudot Prize.

He has since then written children’s books such as „Lullaby” (released in 1980) and „Balaabilou” (published in 1985), essays drawing their core from the time he had spent in Mexico and Central America and novels that stem from his own life experiences and relationships. His 2004 one, „L’Africain,” falls into the latter category, since it tells the story of his father and himself as a young boy, as he strives to cope with living in the shadow of the former.

The prize committee described the French writer as being an "author of new departures, poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy, explorer of a humanity beyond and below the reigning civilization.”