J. M. G. Le Clezio

Recipient of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Literature, Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio was born on April 13, 1940, in Nice. At the age of eight, Le Clézio and his family relocated to Nigeria, where the father had been stationed as a physician during the Second World War. He was raised speaking both French and English, and his literary career began at the age of eight with the novel Un long voyage, written over their passage to Nigeria. In 1950 the family returned to Nice. After completing his secondary education, he studied English at Bristol University in 1958-59 and completed his undergraduate degree in Nice (Institut d Études Littéraires) in 1963. He took a master s degree at the University of Aix-en-Provence in 1964 and wrote a doctoral thesis on Mexico s early history at the University of Perpignan in 1983. He has taught at universities in Bangkok, Mexico City, Boston, Austin and Albuquerque.