Nobel Prize in Literature in 2008 has been awarded to Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio (France and Mauritius) for his article Dans la forêt des paradoxes as it being focused on the environment, especially the desert, as described by Nobel foundation. His article Dans la forêt des paradoxes means forest of paradoxes in English.
He is the first French citizen to receive the Nobel Prize since Gao Xingjian in 2000. When a survey is conducted by French Literary magazine, he was considered as greatest living French language writer. He has published books that include short stories, novels, essays and on the subject of Indian mythology. He brings out different shades of loneliness, different states of mind and nature in his articles. His writing career may be divided into two main periods, from 1963 to 1975. He used to write articles about insanity (permanent disorder of mind) and language. Before his writing career, he used to experiment on himself. In the late 1970s, he stopped experimentation and the mood of his novels changed and started writing articles on childhood, adolescence and traveling, attracting a broader and more popular audience. In 1980, Le Clézio was the first winner of the newly created grand prix Paul-Morand, awarded to his article Désert by the Académie française. Horace Engdahl, Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy, commented to reporters after announcement of Nobel Prize to Le Clézio, that Le Clézio is not a French writer. He also said that he is a nomadic (a person who moves from one place to other) writer and doesn’t belong to anywhere. He used to deal with subjects like Exile (form of punishment), Migration,Childhood and Ecology.