The African

by J. M. G. Le Clézio, translated by C. Dickson
David R. Godine, Publisher

There’s something intimidating about designing a memoir by a Nobel Prize winner: the stakes are higher because the publisher can expect greater-than-average exposure (and sales), even for an author who might not sell well in the U.S. I’d worked on Desert, Le Clézio’s novel about the Blue Men of Morocco, which Godine had published just about the time of the prize announcement. The African – a compact, very personal piece of writing – gave me an opportunity to make an elegant, intimate book. The author provided the marvelous, intense photograph for the jacket.

Hardcover with jacket, 5 × 7.5"