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The stuff of dreams

Globalisation is a recurrent theme in French writer Le Clezio's book "Onitsha"

AT HOME, ANYWHERE French writer, Le Clézio

"I don't remember if I said that," says Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio, shrugging off his powerful statement that contemporary literature is a one of despair. "Or maybe I said that when I was desperate," jokes one of France's most celebrated contemporary writers.

"I am not writing a diary of despair like Søren Kierkegaard, but yes, it's a difficult epoch, and literature may not be contributing to it, but is merely reflecting the despair in society," he says. Sixty-six-year-old Le Clézio recently released the English translation of his novel "Onitsha" published by Roli Books. In the semi-autobiographical novel, the young protagonist and his mother make a sea voyage to join his British father in Africa, where he experiences the injustice under British colonisation. Like the protagonist of the book, Le Clézio started writing his story at the age of seven.

Criticism of colonisation, the dominance of western rationalism and globalisation are recurrent themes. "I am not sure writing proves something, or provides an argument for an idea, or ideology. When I was in my twenties, the main preoccupation was the possibility of a nuclear war. Now the debate is about globalisation, the opposition of cultures, the political use of this opposition, the defiance we feel against religion and the geopolitical use of terror," he says. "I am not against the idea of globalisation per se, but against the monopolisation of one culture over another."

Le Clézio is currently working on a book about Mauritians of French origin who returned to Europe. Like in many of his other works, inspiration comes from very personal space. He belongs to this "vanishing group" consisting of just a dozen or so.

The other is a collection of `fantastical' short stories, exploring the idea of the soul. His writing has a lot to do with dreams. He thinks his book through and one day it's ready to be written. "I don't even make corrections. Sometimes I am even surprised by the way it turns out," he says. "You leave logic behind. But like in a dream, there is a start and an end, and it's compact, and while you are living it, it makes complete sense."

Means of communication

Writing is a need, he says, admitting to not being very sociable. "Writing is my way of communicating. Even if there was just one reader, I would still have to write."

That's hypothetical, of course, because Le Clézio has not only been widely translated but has often been among the hottest bets for the Nobel Prize for Literature. Success came early, in fact at the age of 23 when his very first published novel "Le procès-verbal" won him the Théophraste Renaudot prize. "But fame," he says, "is just bubbles, and talent doesn't work unless you have luck." Though Le Clézio considers his greatest luck is to have had parents who have never forgotten to express their love, no matter what hardships they were going through. "It works like a strength that you can fall back on throughout your life. It's like good health, you have to be lucky to have that," believes Le Clézio.

MEERA MOHANTY

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