2008 Nobel Prize in Literature

Award

2008 Nobel Prize in Literature

Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio

"author of new departures, poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy, explorer of a humanity beyond and below the reigning civilization."

Date|

* 9 October 2008 (2008-10-09) (announcement)
* 10 December 2008
(ceremony)

Location| Stockholm, Sweden
Presented by| Swedish Academy
First award| 1901
Website| Official website
| <- 2007 · | Nobel Prize in Literature | · 2009 ->

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The 2008 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the French novelist Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio (born 1940), better known with his pen name J. M. G. Le Clézio, as an "author of new departures, poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy, explorer of a humanity beyond and below the reigning civilization."[1] He became the 14th French-language author to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature after Claude Simon in 1985 and was followed later by Patrick Modiano in 2014.[2]

## Laureate

[edit]

Main article: J. M. G. Le Clézio

Le Clézio at the press conference in Stockholm, 6 December 2008.

J. M. G. Le Clézio's literary career highlights different cultures in different times and challenges Western civilization's dominance. He questions modern society's materialistic superficiality, which chokes what is genuine in people's relationships with others, with nature, and with the past. Le Clézio, who writes in prose, has published over 40 works since his 1963 début with Le Procès-verbal ("The Interrogation", 1963). His major breakthrough came with Desert in 1980. With its flowing prose, the books stands in contrast to his earlier works' more experimental style. His other famous literary prose include Le Déluge ("The Flood", 1996), Le Chercheur d'or ("The Prospector", 1985), Onitsha (1991), and Étoile errante ("Wandering Star", 1992).[3][2]

## Candidates

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Le Clézio was one of the favourites to win the 2008 Nobel Prize in Literature along with Syrian poet Adunis, Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer (awarded in 2011), American novelist Philip Roth, Dutch writer Cees Nooteboom, Italian scholar Claudio Magris and Chinese poet Bei Dao.[4] According to the British betting agency Ladbrokes, other perennial favorite authors who were tipped to win the prize included Israeli author Amos Oz, American prolific writer Joyce Carol Oates, Japanese writer Haruki Murakami, Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe, Australian poet Les Murray, Canadian author Michael Ondaatje, and American sci-fi writer Ursula K. Le Guin.[5]

## Reactions

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The choice of Le Clézio was well received by Swedish commentators. Kaj Schueler, literature editor of Svenska Dagbladet said: "Not quite unexpected, and very pleasing it is the first French Nobel prize since 1985 when Claude Simon got it". Björn Linell, chair of Swedish PEN, said: "It is very pleasing because this is an authorship for all tastes".[4] Le Clézio himself said: "I am very happy and rather surprised, I did not expect this at all. I'm not sure I deserve it."[6]

## Nobel lecture

[edit]

Le Clézio delivered his Nobel lecture at the Swedish Academy on 7 December 2008. He used his lecture to attack the subject of information poverty.[7] The title of his lecture was Dans la forêt des paradoxes ("In the forest of paradoxes"), a title he attributed to Stig Dagerman.[8][9]

## Award ceremony speech

[edit]

At the award ceremony in Stockholm on 10 December 2008, Horace Engdahl of the Swedish Academy said:

> This year’s Laureate in Literature belongs to the tradition of the critique of civilisation (...) Few authors have so convincingly described how reluctantly languages and cultures die. (...)

> Le Clézio’s imagination sustains itself in the unexplored regions where fear and ecstasy arise, inseparable from one another. It may seem surprising to call him a hopeful author, given the significant strain of colonial devastation, bourgeois oppressiveness, and social injustice in his themes. Still, he deserves such a designation. The earth’s lustre, the sun, the sea, and the vast expanses, the irrepressible feeling of freedom that comes with a new departure – these are the forces that outweigh the sorrow about the path that our civilisation has taken.[10]

## Gallery

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* 9 October 2008: Announcement of the 2008 Nobel Prize laureate in Literature at the Swedish Academy by Horace Engdahl.

*   *   *

* 6 December 2008: Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio entertaining questions during the Swedish Academy's press conference.

*   *   *

## References

[edit]

1. ^ The Nobel Prize in Literature 2008 nobelprize.org
2. ^ a b "Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 21 May 2021.
3. ^ Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio – Facts nobelprize.org
4. ^ a b Hernadi, Alexandra (9 October 2008). "Jean-Marie Le Clézio får Nobelpriset i litteratur". Svenska Dagbladet (in Swedish).
5. ^ Adam Cox and Johan Sennero (1 October 2008). "Old favorites top Nobel literature prize guess-list". Reuters. Retrieved 20 August 2022.
6. ^ "Nobelpriset i litteratur till Le Clézio" (in Swedish). SVT Nyheter. 9 October 2008.
7. ^ Lea, Richard (8 December 2008). "Le Clézio uses Nobel lecture to attack information poverty". London: guardian.co.uk home. Retrieved 14 December 2008.
8. ^ The Nobel Foundation 2008 (7 December 2008). "The Nobel Foundation 2008". Nobel Lecture. The Nobel Foundation 2008. Retrieved 11 December 2008.`{{cite web}}`: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
9. ^ Thompson, Bob (9 October 2008). "France's Le Clézio Wins Nobel Literature Prize". The Washington Post. Retrieved 21 May 2021.
10. ^ "Award ceremony speech". nobelprize.org.

## External links

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* Prize announcement 2008 nobelprize.org
* Award Ceremony video nobelprize.org
* Award ceremony speech nobelprize.org
* Nobel lecture nobelprize.org
* Photo gallery nobelprize.org

* v
* t
* e

Laureates of the Nobel Prize in Literature

1901–1920|

* 1901: Sully Prudhomme
* 1902: Theodor Mommsen
* 1903: Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson
* 1904: Frédéric Mistral / José Echegaray
* 1905: Henryk Sienkiewicz
* 1906: Giosuè Carducci
* 1907: Rudyard Kipling
* 1908: Rudolf Eucken
* 1909: Selma Lagerlöf
* 1910: Paul Heyse
* 1911: Maurice Maeterlinck
* 1912: Gerhart Hauptmann
* 1913: Rabindranath Tagore
* 1914
* 1915: Romain Rolland
* 1916: Verner von Heidenstam
* 1917: Karl Gjellerup / Henrik Pontoppidan
* 1918
* 1919: Carl Spitteler
* 1920: Knut Hamsun

1921–1940|

* 1921: Anatole France
* 1922: Jacinto Benavente
* 1923: W. B. Yeats
* 1924: Władysław Reymont
* 1925: George Bernard Shaw
* 1926: Grazia Deledda
* 1927: Henri Bergson
* 1928: Sigrid Undset
* 1929: Thomas Mann
* 1930: Sinclair Lewis
* 1931: Erik Axel Karlfeldt (posthumously)
* 1932: John Galsworthy
* 1933: Ivan Bunin
* 1934: Luigi Pirandello
* 1935
* 1936: Eugene O'Neill
* 1937: Roger Martin du Gard
* 1938: Pearl S. Buck
* 1939: Frans Eemil Sillanpää
* 1940

1941–1960|

* 1941
* 1942
* 1943
* 1944: Johannes V. Jensen
* 1945: Gabriela Mistral
* 1946: Hermann Hesse
* 1947: André Gide
* 1948: T. S. Eliot
* 1949: William Faulkner
* 1950: Bertrand Russell
* 1951: Pär Lagerkvist
* 1952: François Mauriac
* 1953: Winston Churchill
* 1954: Ernest Hemingway
* 1955: Halldór Laxness
* 1956: Juan Ramón Jiménez
* 1957: Albert Camus
* 1958: Boris Pasternak
* 1959: Salvatore Quasimodo
* 1960: Saint-John Perse

1961–1980|

* 1961: Ivo Andrić
* 1962: John Steinbeck
* 1963: Giorgos Seferis
* 1964: Jean-Paul Sartre (declined award)
* 1965: Mikhail Sholokhov
* 1966: Shmuel Yosef Agnon / Nelly Sachs
* 1967: Miguel Ángel Asturias
* 1968: Yasunari Kawabata
* 1969: Samuel Beckett
* 1970: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
* 1971: Pablo Neruda
* 1972: Heinrich Böll
* 1973: Patrick White
* 1974: Eyvind Johnson / Harry Martinson
* 1975: Eugenio Montale
* 1976: Saul Bellow
* 1977: Vicente Aleixandre
* 1978: Isaac Bashevis Singer
* 1979: Odysseas Elytis
* 1980: Czesław Miłosz

1981–2000|

* 1981: Elias Canetti
* 1982: Gabriel García Márquez
* 1983: William Golding
* 1984: Jaroslav Seifert
* 1985: Claude Simon
* 1986: Wole Soyinka
* 1987: Joseph Brodsky
* 1988: Naguib Mahfouz
* 1989: Camilo José Cela
* 1990: Octavio Paz
* 1991: Nadine Gordimer
* 1992: Derek Walcott
* 1993: Toni Morrison
* 1994: Kenzaburō Ōe
* 1995: Seamus Heaney
* 1996: Wisława Szymborska
* 1997: Dario Fo
* 1998: José Saramago
* 1999: Günter Grass
* 2000: Gao Xingjian

2001–2020|

* 2001: V. S. Naipaul
* 2002: Imre Kertész
* 2003: J. M. Coetzee
* 2004: Elfriede Jelinek
* 2005: Harold Pinter
* 2006: Orhan Pamuk
* 2007: Doris Lessing
* 2008: J. M. G. Le Clézio
* 2009: Herta Müller
* 2010: Mario Vargas Llosa
* 2011: Tomas Tranströmer
* 2012: Mo Yan
* 2013: Alice Munro
* 2014: Patrick Modiano
* 2015: Svetlana Alexievich
* 2016: Bob Dylan
* 2017: Kazuo Ishiguro
* 2018: Olga Tokarczuk
* 2019: Peter Handke
* 2020: Louise Glück

2021–present|

* 2021: Abdulrazak Gurnah
* 2022: Annie Ernaux
* 2023: Jon Fosse
* 2024: Han Kang
* 2025: to be determined

* v
* t
* e

2008 Nobel Prize laureates

Chemistry|

* Osamu Shimomura (Japan/United States)
* Martin Chalfie (United States)
* Roger Y. Tsien (United States)

Literature (2008)|

* J. M. G. Le Clézio (France)

Peace|

* Martti Ahtisaari (Finland)

Physics|

* Makoto Kobayashi (Japan)
* Toshihide Maskawa (Japan)
* Yoichiro Nambu (United States/Japan)

Physiology or Medicine|

* Harald zur Hausen (Germany)
* Françoise Barré-Sinoussi (France)
* Luc Montagnier (France)

Economic Sciences|

* Paul Krugman (United States)

Nobel Prize recipients
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