I can understand better than most the contradiction between the idealistic civilisation and religious morals of Europe and what they did with the slaves, because the root of the evil is only two generations away from me. Maybe this has fed my need to fight against the abuses of modern civilisation.

I've always felt very much from a mixed culture - mainly English and French, but also Nigerian, Thai, Mexican. Everything's had its influence on me.

To understand the hidden secret of the modern industrial world in which I find myself, I have to return to another world. That world is at once wartime Nice and the plantation - the sugar isles on which Europe's prosperity was built.

J. M. G. Le Clezio Quotes