The Prospector- Available November 2025

From master storyteller J. M. G. Le Clézio, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, the search for treasure in a childhood Eden.

“For as long as I can remember,” the author writes, “I heard the sea.” At the turn of the century on the island of Mauritius, and young Alexis L’Etang enjoys an idyllic existence with his parents and beloved sister: sampling the pleasures of privilege, exploring the constellations and tropical flora, and dreaming of treasure buried long ago by the legendary Unknown Corsair.

But with his father’s death, Alexis must leave his childhood paradise and enter the harsh world of privation and shame. Years later, Alexis has become obsessed with the idea of finding the Corsair’s treasure and, through it, the lost magic and opulence of his youth. He abandons job and family, setting off on a quest that will take him from remote tropical islands to the hell of World War I, and from a love affair with the elusive Ouma to a momentous confrontation with the search that has consumed his life.

Rich with sensuality and haunting resonance, by turns harsh and lyrical, pointed and nostalgic, The Prospector is “a parable of the human condition” (Le Monde) by one of the most significant literary figures in the world today.

Click here for the 2008 edition of The Prospector, available at a 30% discount!

Praise for The Prospector

“The Prospector offers a wonderful one-volume compendium of all the grand myths rooted in the European colonial experience….Le Clézio has perfected a swift-moving, plain-speaking style, well served in this English translation.” —Washington Post

“An author of new departures, poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy, explorer of a humanity beyond and below the reigning civilization.”—The Nobel Prize committee on J. M. G. Le Clézio

“An entertainment of the highest order that neither diminishes nor insults the intelligence and emotions of the reader.”—Chicago Tribune

“Le Clézio, one of France’s finest writers, is an incantatory and dazzlingly visual novelist. Le Clezio brilliantly conveys the sublime and terrible beauty of life and its twin, death, in devastating evocations of the pulse of the sea, the blaze of the sun, the horrors of violence, and the miraculous lyricism of the mind. A remarkable work.” —Booklist

“A parable of the human condition.”—Le Monde

“Written it in a lyrical, leisurely style, full of foreshadowings and echoes, that is fiction’s equivalent to a film director’s use of soft focus. The story told by the narrator, Alexis D’Etang, for all its realistic detail, is hazy and blurred, like a series of dreams….Le Clézio seems to say that we live in a world of dreams—we can’t help it—but that history works outside of those dreams and eventually wears through them….Beauty and power, and an ending that surprises and haunts us with its desolation.” —Los Angeles Times

“A novel of intense beauty.” —Review of Contemporary Fiction

“Often piercingly vivid, and poignant at the close.” —Kirkus

“A beautiful novel, though not for you if you like a fast pace and a strong plot. It will, though, make you want to drop everything except your passport and head for Mauritius.” —Historical Novel Society