J. M. G. Le Clézio Clézio used his Nobel prize acceptance lecture to attack the subject of information poverty. The title of his lecture was "Dans la forêt des paradoxes" ("In the forest of paradoxes"), a title he attributed to Stig Dagerman. Gao Xingjian, a Chinese émigré, was the previous French citizen to receive the prize (for 2000); Le Clézio was the first French-language writer to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature since Claude Simon for 1985, and the fourteenth since Sully Prudhomme, laureate of the first prize of 1901. He is a staunch defender of Mama Rosa, director of a Mexican shelter raided by
Paul Prudhomme His father was a farmer, who struggled financially during Prudhomme's childhood, and his mother was a creative cook. Previously named after Saint Paul, as chosen by a Catholic priest, Prudhomme adopted the pseudonym "Gene Autry Prudhomme" during his youth. Paul Prudhomme's maternal ancestors include early Acadian settlers Martin Aucoin (c. 1651 – 1711) and Marie Gaudet (c. 1657 – 1734). Prudhomme opened his first restaurant in Opelousas in 1957, a hamburger restaurant called "Big Daddy O's Patio". The restaurant went out of business in nine months, which also saw the end of his first marriage. He became a magazine seller