From: World Literature Today | Date: September 22, 1996| Author: Brown, John L. | COPYRIGHT 1996 University of Oklahoma. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan.  All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group.Copyright information

From the start, J. M. G. Le Clezio has been considered a maverick, but a maverick of genius. In 1963, at the age of twenty-three, his first novel, Le proces verbal, received the Prix Renaudot. Since then, he has published some twenty-three works, of which La quarantaine is the most recent. They take place all over the globe, from South and Central America (Le Clezio has a particular fondness for Mexico and has translated some ancient Mayan poetry) to India and Africa. He spends littl...