An historic and politic reading of Ourania by J.M.G. Le Clézio

Abstract

Paradoxally, Le Clézio, writes Ourania, a utopian novel, when this kind of fiction seems quite obsolete after the failure of the communist utopia in URSS and Eastern Europe. He doesn’t however imagine an abstract «brave new world». His «no where» is a «now here»: his fiction takes place in contemporary Mexico, in 1980, during Reagan’s presidence and Civil War in Salvador. My purpose is to show the ethical and political effects upon the vision of utopia of this choice of a real geographical, economical and historical context. Between dream and reality, Le Clézio’s humanist utopia tells that litterature has the power to withstand desillusion.