Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio - Nobelio premija

Label France: Your work is described as mystical, philosophical and even ecological! Do you recognize yourself in these descriptions?

J.-M. G. Le Clézio: It is difficult to describe what you do yourself. If I had to assess my books I would say that they are what are most like me. In other words, for me it’s less a matter of expressing ideas than expressing what I am and what I believe in. When I write I am primarily trying to translate my relationship to the everyday, to events. We live in a troubled era in which we are bombarded by a chaos of ideas and images. The role of literature today is perhaps to echo this chaos.
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-Why are you so fascinated by other cultures?
Western culture has become too monolithic. It places the greatest possible emphasis on its urban and technical side thus preventing the development of other forms of expression: religiosity and feelings, for example. The entire unknowable part of the human being is obscured in the name of rationalism. It is my awareness of this that has pushed me towards other civilisations.
-In this other place you have sought, Mexico in particular and the Amerindian world in general occupy a predominant place. How did you come to learn about Mexico?
I was sent to Mexico to do my military service. During the two years I spent in the country I had the opportunity to travel. In particular, I went to Panama where I met the Emberas. I spent four years (1970-1974) with this Indian forest population. It was a deeply moving experience, because I discovered a way of life that had nothing to do with what I had been able to experience in Europe. The Emberas live in harmony with nature, with their environment and with themselves without needing to refer to any sort of legal or religious authority. I found that staggering and when, on my return, I wanted to talk about the social cohesion of this community, the critics accused me of being naive, simplistic and falling for the myth of the "noble savage", although this was not at all what I meant. I could never say of these people with whom I lived that they were savage, or that they were noble. They lived by other criteria and other values.
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-Your novels also have an autobiographical side. Do you get the impression of being the archivist of your own history, of your own experience of life?
My favourite novelists are Stevenson and Joyce. They drew their inspiration from their first years of life. Through writing they relived their past and tried to understand the "whys" and "hows" of it. When you read Joyce’s Ulysses, you truly have the impression that Joyce was not aiming to relate the story of the present moment, but to express everything that was in him, everything that made him what he was. He resurrected the slightest sounds of the street, snippets of conversations, the corporal punishment suffered at school and which still haunted him like an obsession. Naipaul too, returns in his imagination to his first years of education. Literature is only strong when it manages to express the first sensations, the first experiences, the first ideas, the first disappointments.
-One often has the impression when reading your work that your characters, in your image, are looking for a homeland which goes beyond the traditional and slightly narrow concept of nation. Salman Rushdie talks about "imaginary homelands" when describing the new relationship that the exiled writer tries to establish with the country from which he comes. What is your imaginary homeland like?
I consider myself an exile because my family is entirely Mauritian. For generations we were fed on Mauritian folklore, food, legends and culture. It is a very mixed culture, a fusion of India, Africa and Europe. I was born in France and raised in France with this country’s culture. I grew up telling myself that there was a somewhere else which embodied my true homeland. One day I would go there, and I would know what it was. So in France I always thought of myself a little bit of an "outsider". On the other hand, I love the French language which is perhaps my true country! But thinking of France as a nation, I must say I have rarely identified with its priorities. -Your ancestors were French, I believe ?
In fact the Le Clézios were from Morbihan, in Brittany. At the time of the Revolution, one of my ancestors, who had refused to enlist in the revolutionary army because they insisted he cut his long hair, was forced to flee France. He embarked with his entire family on a boat called Le Courrier des Indes with the intention of going to India. But when the boat put in at Mauritius, he got off because his wife came from the island where she still had family. The Mauritian branch of the Le Clezio family is descended from this adventurous and rebellious ancestor. In fact, he’s the hero of my next novel. At this very moment I’m in the process of writing the story of how he settled on Mauritius. I feel close to this man who was exiled to the other end of the world in order to flee from something. I feel I understand him.
-It is said that you are a potential Nobel prizewinner. Let’s imagine that you are awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature tomorrow. What would you like to say at the award ceremony?
That’s a very hypothetical question! I don’t know for the Nobel prize but I know what I would like to talk about publicly. I would like to talk about the war that kills children. This, for me, is the most terrible thing of our age. Literature is also a means of reminding people of this tragedy and bringing it back to centre stage. In Paris recently, statues of women were veiled in order to condemn the fact that women in Afghanistan are denied freedom. That’s very good. In the same way, we should mark all the statues of children with a big red spot over the heart as a reminder that at every moment, somewhere in Palestine, South America or Africa, a child is killed by bullets. People never talk about that!
Interview conducted by Tirthankar Chanda Academic and contributor to Le Magazine littéraire (2001)
http://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/en/france_159/label-france_2554/label-france-issues_2555/label-france-no.-45_3724/literature_3732/interview-with-jean-marie-clezio_5092.html