The PEN World Voices Festival presents a very special pre-festival event with 2008 Nobel Laureate Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio at the 92nd Street Y on Friday, April 24. This will be Mr. Le Clézio’s first major U.S. appearance since being awarded the Nobel for Literature. He will be joined in conversation by Adam Gopnik of The New Yorker.

An avid traveler, French novelist and essayist Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio has written more than 40 books about exile and self-discovery, and the clash between modern civilization and traditional cultures. His first novel, The Interrogation (blogger Lux Lotus gives you a reason to read), dates back to 1963 and was recently republished in English after being out of print in America. In announcing the prize, the Swedish Academy called him an “author of new departures, poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy, explorer of a humanity beyond and below the reigning civilization.”

Video: Recorded in Stockholm in December 2008, Le Clézio reads an excerpt from his book Onitsha.

Related: PEN World Voices Festival returns to the Y on May 1 for “Readings From Around The Globe” with Bernardo Atxaga, Petina Gappah, Mariken Jongman, Michael Ondaatje, Daniel Sada, Hwang Sok-yong, Antonio Tabucchi, and Colm Tóibín.

Previously: Podcast of Doris Lessing, 2007 Nobel Prize for Literature