Desert

J. M. G. Le Clézio · b. 1940 · France

Originally Désert (French) · translated by C. Dickson

Why it matters

The doomed 1910 march of the Saharan 'blue men' against French guns alternates with Lalla, their descendant, drifting luminous and unbroken through Marseille's slums. Le Clézio's turning point: colonial destruction and its long afterlife told as pure light and landscape.

At a glance

Little plot and long sensory passages; the twinned timelines carry the meaning.