tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56499073177763138332024-03-13T23:37:40.605-07:00Bhaarathamba - The Great IndiaRanjith Nairhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04355803129150452951noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5649907317776313833.post-45506779648597380282008-12-17T03:52:00.000-08:002008-12-17T03:59:08.915-08:00Mahabharata a sustaining factor in my life: Nobel winner<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_fopCLpYUh0o/SUjo7eavTaI/AAAAAAAABbc/MPWNFCggL6w/s1600-h/Jean-Marie.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 250px; height: 250px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_fopCLpYUh0o/SUjo7eavTaI/AAAAAAAABbc/MPWNFCggL6w/s400/Jean-Marie.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5280726671567048098" border="0" /></a><br /><br />French writer Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio, who has won the 2008 Nobel prize for literature, says the Mahabharata has been a sustaining factor in his life, especially as a storyteller.<br /><br />'The great Indian epic Mahabharata has been a sustaining factor in my life - not so much philosophically but in seeking stories,' Le Clezio told IANS in an interview here.<br /><br />'I consider myself basically a story-teller, not a moulder of thought,' said the writer who is here for the Nobel prize ceremony Wednesday.<br /><br />Le Clezio's links with India do not stop there.<br /><br />Having grown up in Mauritius, Le Clézio spoke of 'the inescapable contact with India and Indians'.<br /><br />'One cannot grow up in Mauritius and not imbibe Indian life. It is not just across the sea from you but, indeed, all around you: customs, culture, languages, politics. Many of my earliest, and continuing, friends have been Indians. They have lived for generations there but it is as if they had never left India.'<br /><br />In fact, a chief protagonist of one of Le Clezio's major works, 'The Treasure Seeker', is an Indian girl. 'The Book of Flights' and 'Desert' are some of his other works.<br /><br />The Swedish Academy awarded the 2008 prize to Le Clezio, recognizing him as the 'author of new departures, poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy, explorer of a humanity beyond and below the reigning civilization'.<br /><br />Asked if French writers Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre with whom Le Clezio has been favourably compared had been his role models, he said: 'Yes and no.'<br /><br />'I have admired Sartre much but not been directly influenced by him....after all, I have accepted the Nobel Prize, haven't I?' he said with a disarming twinkle in his eyes.<br /><br />The great Sartre was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1964 but disdainfully refused to accept it saying: 'I do not wish to be hitherto known as that Sartre that received the Nobel Prize'.<br /><br />Courtesy : MathrubhumiRanjith Nairhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04355803129150452951noreply@blogger.com0