Nobel Prize in Literature

French novelist Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio won the 2008 Novel Prize in literature a few weeks ago. The Swedish Academy called Le Clézio an “author of new departures, poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy, explorer of a humanity beyond and below the reigning civilization.” Wow. Well, not all of J.M. Le Clézio’s books have been translated into English, but we do have a few at the Wellesley Free Library. The Prospector is one of his more recent titles. Clicking on that bibliographic record in our catalog can lead you to his other works.

For a list of Nobel Laureates in Literature, go to:

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/

Don't look for a lot of Americans on this list. The last time an American won was in 1993 -- Toni Morrison.

Horace Engdahl, the permanent secretary of the Nobel prize jury, told the Associated Press:

"There is powerful literature in all big cultures, but you can't get away from the fact that Europe still is the centre of the literary world ... not the United States. The US is too isolated, too insular. They don't translate enough and don't really participate in the big dialogue of literature ...That ignorance is restraining." Ouch.