Desert

by Le Clezio, Jean-Marie Gustave

• ISBN13: 9781567923865
• ISBN10: 1567923860
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-06-01
• Publisher: David R Godine Pub

Summary

Winner of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Literature and now available for the first time in English translation, Desertis a novel composed of two alternating narratives, set in counter-point. The first takes place in the desert between 1909 and 1912 and evokes the migration of a young adolescent boy, Nour and his people, the Blue Men, notorious warriors of the desert. The second narrative relates the contemporary story of Lalla, a descendant of the Blue Men. Lalla flees to escape a forced marriage with an older, wealthy man. She travels to France, undergoing many trials there, from working in a brothel to success as a highly paid fashion model, but she never betrays the blood of her ancestors."This work contains magnificent images of a lost culture in the North African desert, contrasted with a depiction of Europe seen through the eyes of unwanted immigrants"?from the Nobel citation by the Swedish Academy

Author Biography

Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio-novelist, essayist, and short story writer-has published more than forty works of fiction and non-fiction. In 2008, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature and described by the Swedish Academy as an "author of new departures, poetic adventure, and sensual ecstasy, explorer of a humanity beyond and below the reigning civilization."