In our Contemporary 20th-century literature course we were reading Annie Ernaux, Tahar Ben Jelloun, J.M.G. Le Clezio, and other great post-1950 French authors.
We had the great fortune to have Ernaux, poet Yves Bonnefoy, Le Clezio, and a handful of others, as speakers that year. And in true French-American style, there was always a small wine-cheese-crudités reception following the intellectual portion of gathering, where we had the chance to talk more informally.
Le Clezio visited our graduate seminar and fielded questions from the small group of students about his novel, Onitsha, which we were studying.
I was, as usual, so tongue-tied and awestruck by his fame and ability that I was only able to sputter
unintelligible questions about the work, and the powerfully moving poetry of his novel. Besides, Le Clezio in person was an Adonis. A brilliant, literate French Adonis.I may have semi-flunked the seminar-participation portion of my graduate school grades.
But, wow. As of today I can boast that I have met and discussed French literature with a winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Time to read some more of his works.
4 comments:
Wow, not everyone can boast of meeting a Nobel prize winning author.
This news pop into my feed last night and I realised I know very little indeed about contemporary French writers. Time to rectify that I think.
Would you mind if I asked you where you went to school? I just finished my MA in French lit. in May at Boston University, and now I'm working as an English assistant in France.
I did not meet any Nobel prize-winning authors, however. Very cool!
Very cool! Must go read his work....
Lucky girl...
AsdI wroe a few hoursago, Onitsha is the only novel by Le Clezio hve read. I didn't lik it. I though it wa quit boring actually (I must confess I'm not especially interested in any pice of litterature talking about Africa). Besides, I would love to meet this charming and intereted man... but... I would be much much much happier to meet Annie Ernaux !
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