Le Chercheur d’or

The Prospector was inspired by the adventures of the author’s paternal grandfather, Léon Le Clézio, and is set on the islands of Mauritius and Rodrigues. Driven from their family estate at Boucan by bankruptcy and a cyclone, the narrator, Alexis L’Étang, has but one desire: to fulfil his father’s dream by finding a corsair’s treasure hidden on the island of Rodrigues, evoking the Saint-Brandon archipelago, “a paradise on earth” where pirates once came to die in the eighteenth century. “It is a novel of adventure and initiation akin to Stevenson’s Treasure Island, in which Jim, the hero, sets out to sea in search of a buried treasure. The initiation begins with a break from the world of childhood […] and summons several literary myths, including that of Paul et Virginie or Robinson Crusoe […] in search of spiritual truth and inner harmony before the beauty of the world.” (B. Chahine, Dictionnaire Le Clézio).

“Literature is a form of adventure, whose end and outcome remain unknown, but which one can prolong, or send off course, by writing. […] My grandfather never found the treasure — he said so in one of his letters — but he put everything back exactly as it had been, so that someone else might take up the search. He was a dreamer, but a meticulous dreamer, leaving behind a very detailed map of a world that does not exist.” (Le Clézio, interview with Augustin Trapenard, 21 cm, 2018).

A very fine copy, as issued.