''Ailleurs'' are the transcripts of a series of interviews between
Jean-Louis Ezine
Jean-Louis Ezine, real name Jean-Louis Bunel[Nobel laureate
The Nobel Prizes ( sv, Nobelpriset, no, Nobelprisen) are awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Swedish Academy, the Karolinska Institutet, and the Norwegian Nobel Committee to individuals and organizations who make out ...](_blank)
J. M. G. Le Clézio
Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio (; 13 April 1940), usually identified as J. M. G. Le Clézio, of French and Mauritian nationality, is a writer and professor. The author of over forty works, he was awarded the 1963 Prix Renaudot for his novel ''Le P ...
.
Short summary
''Ailleurs'' (French for "Elsewhere") reads like a meandering conversation where Le Clézio gets to talk about his childhood, his dreams, where he prefers to do his writing as well as aviation and how he escapes from the everyday.
Some of the themes expanded in these interviews are:
* The gold-digger who was Le Clézio's grandfather.
* His English-speaking father.
*
Milly-la-Forêt
Milly-la-Forêt () is a Communes of France, commune in the Essonne Departments of France, department in the Île-de-France region in northern France.
Geology
The Forest of Fontainebleau, in the western end of which Milly-la-Forêt lies, is compo ...
(the village where his mother was born).
* Why he was that kind of a child who would prefer to stay in a cabin somewhere off of the coast of Africa to write.
* He was also a teenager who believed his destiny was to be found in comic strips.
* Why Le Clézio was a (human) being not like other beings; how he was preoccupied with meditation and (day)dreaming.
* Le Clézio claiming never to have been either a cheap nor a false populist.
* Le Clézio on bearing no resentment or any desire to get revenge.
According to the publisher, the interviews lead to a book which is " an opus on thinking and on poetry" and which uses "broad strokes using mythological colors to tell his story". The storyline of this book is definitely what the French call " Ailleurs" meaning somewhere else.
Broadcast
This book includes interviews previously broadcast on
France Culture
France Culture is a French public radio channel and part of Radio France. Its programming encompasses a wide variety of features on historical, philosophical, sociopolitical, and scientific themes (including debates, discussions, and documentari ...
in 1988 as part of a radio-programme "A voix nue".
References
{{J. M. G. Le Clézio
1995 essays
Essays by J. M. G. Le Clézio