Getting to Know Le Clézio

[Dave Monroe]

The Wall Street Journal
BOOKS OCTOBER 30, 2008
A Nobel Undertaking: Getting to Know Le Clézio
By RICHARD B. WOODWARD

I am not alone in never having read a word by J.M.G. Le Clézio until
he was awarded the 2008 Nobel Prize in literature earlier this month.
On hearing the news, most American book critics and bloggers confessed
they did not know his work either. To some, this national ignorance
gave credence to remarks from the Swedish Academy's secretary, Horace
Engdhal, who had earlier declared the U.S. literary scene too
"insular" for any of its writers to deserve a trip to Stockholm. To
others, though, Mr. Engdahl's attitude betrayed its own form of
parochialism. While few can deny that American publishers "don't
translate enough" compared with their European counterparts, the
argument that Thomas Pynchon, Philip Roth, Don DeLillo, Cormac
McCarthy, John Updike and David Mamet are unworthy of a Nobel because
Americans "don't really participate in the big dialogue of literature"
is hard to defend (or even decipher)....

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122532947829282765.html