KFSM.com's Global Viewpoint offers an interview with 2008 Nobel literature prize winner Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio, who says that for literature,
The world has no center ...
Literature now is the expression of a global concern, not only of the European culture, but literature emerging from all voices and from all nations. This is what interests me most. It's why I like so much to travel. I'm able to meet writers in many diverse places, such as America, Africa or India. All those writers are trying to express something particular which belongs to the universal.
... literature is essential because you create interculturality through imagination. Literature in the 21st century is the only place to understand the other, because literature is about compassion for humanity. I do not have the Christian message in mind here. I mean the capacity of understanding others and being aware of their connection to you. But, in order to be compassionate, one should be able to understand the human condition, to understand another culture's point of view, to see the meaninglessness of "otherness."
Today we see the possibility of unprecedented connections between very distant places, like some children living in a forest in Panama becoming aware of the poetry of Homer. This is amazing; it never happened before in the history of humanity.
Literature now is the expression of a global concern, not only of the European culture, but literature emerging from all voices and from all nations. This is what interests me most. It's why I like so much to travel. I'm able to meet writers in many diverse places, such as America, Africa or India. All those writers are trying to express something particular which belongs to the universal.
... literature is essential because you create interculturality through imagination. Literature in the 21st century is the only place to understand the other, because literature is about compassion for humanity. I do not have the Christian message in mind here. I mean the capacity of understanding others and being aware of their connection to you. But, in order to be compassionate, one should be able to understand the human condition, to understand another culture's point of view, to see the meaninglessness of "otherness."
Today we see the possibility of unprecedented connections between very distant places, like some children living in a forest in Panama becoming aware of the poetry of Homer. This is amazing; it never happened before in the history of humanity.
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