The Poetics of Sensation in J.M.G. Le Clezio's Onitsha

Abstract

French-Mauritian writer Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2008 and has published over forty novels, is little known in the English-speaking academe where there is virtually no critical work available about his work. This article seeks to remedy this gap of knowledge through a close reading of Onitsha (1997), a novel illustrative of Le Clezio's literary project from the 1990s onward. In Onitsha, Le Clezio is primarily concerned with conveying the texture of varying sensations associated with different experiences in order to connect these experiences to the feelings related to "being in the world". Textually, this is achieved through the evocation of the main protagonist's experience of the world by way of sensation, and I will show that the quality of affect that results stands for something both contained and specific, and with far-reaching implications. The role of affect in Onitsha and how it is focused on sensations results in a thoroughly original coming­of-age tale, located between poetry and prose.

Die Frans-Mauritiaanse skrywer Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio, wat die Nobelprys vir Letterkunde in 2008 ontvang het en meer as veertig romans gepubliseer het, is nie welbekend in die Engelssprekende akademiese wereld waar feitlik geen kritiese werk oor sy skryfwerk beskikbaar is nie. In hierdie artikel poog ek om hierdie kennisleemte reg te stel deur middel van 'n noulettende studie van Onitsha (1997), 'n roman wat lig werp op Le Clezio se literere projek vanaf die 1990's. In Onitsha is Le Clezio hoofsaaklik daarmee gemoeid om die tekstuur weer te gee van verskillende sensasies wat geassosieer word met verskillende ervarings ten einde hierdie ervarings in verband te bring met gevoelens van "in die wereld te wees". Tekstueel word dit bereik deur die hoofprotagonis se ervaring van die wereld deur middel van sensasie op te roep. Ek poog om te toon dat die gevolglike affek beide beheers en spesifiek is, en verreikende implikasies het. Die rol van affek in Onitsha -en hoe dit op sensasies fokus -het 'n oorspronklike mondigwordingsverhaal tot gevolg wat tussen die poesie en prosa gelee is.