France's Le Clezio Wins Nobel Literature Prize
French novelist Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio won the 2008 Nobel Prize in literature on Thursday, October 09, 2008. The Swedish Academy called Le Clezio, 68, an "author of new departures, poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy." Le Clezio made his breakthrough as a novelist with "Desert," in 1980, a work the academy said "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."