Overview

"In awarding him the Nobel Prize in 2008, the Swedish Academy hailed J. M. G. Le Clezio as an ""author of new departures, poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy, explorer of humanity beyond and below the reigning civilisation."" The outlying humanity that Le Clezio explores in this collection of stories finds its expression in the understanding of children. The world of Mondo and Other Stories is that of a natural world pushed to the margins by complacent, indifferent modernity. Haunting and beautiful, these stories speak to a universal longing for a life beyond the confines and trappings of modern existence. In each tale it is a child who can see and appreciate these places filled with wonder and knowledge. Mondo is a little boy whose connection to the beauty in everything unites a seaside town. Little Cross perturbs the order of things with her question: ""What is blue? Daniel flees his stifling school and absent parents for the sea. All these children, like the wise billy goat in the collection's final story, understand ""so many things, not the things you find in books that men like to talk about but silent, strong things, things full of beauty and mystery."" And in the end, so do we."

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Reviews

Le Clezio's style is the collection's greatest attraction. Anderson's elegant translation conveys the detailed, physical, fluid, and complex lushness of the language, which may engage and satisfy readers of Garcia Marquez and other master stylists. -Ellen Loughran, Booklist -- Ellen Loughran Booklist In Le Clezio's fictional universe, the world exists in a prelapsarian state of timeless grace, at least until the inevitably corrupt and destructive world of adults comes crashing in. -Michael Lindgren, Washington Post -- Michael Lindgren Washington Post

Mood and description take precedent over narrative in this vivid, subtle collection by the winner of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Literature, originally published in France in 1978... Le Clezio's prose is unusually fine throughout; dry earth is described as sounding under your feet like the skin of a drum. The reader is always aware of being in the hands of a master, thanks also to Anderson's strong and graceful translation. - Publishers Weekly, March 2011 The 2008 Nobel laureate's large body of work continues to make its way into English. This collection of stories was first published in French in 1978. One of the stories collected here, the atmospheric The Boy Who Had Never Seen the Sea, appeared in the New Yorker shortly after Le Clezio's Nobel win. Like that story, the rest in this collection focus on a child protagonist who seems to see the world through a different set of eyes. - The Millions

Author Information

J. M. G. Le Clezio, winner of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Literature, was born in Nice in 1940 and is one of France's best-known contemporary writers. His books Onitsha and The Round and Other Cold Hard Facts are both available from the University of Nebraska Press. Alison Anderson is the author of Hidden Latitudes and Darwin's Wink and translated Le Clezio's Onitsha.

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