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J. M. G. Le Clezio Coeur brute et autres romances Paris. Gallimard. 2000. 188 pages 98 F. ISBN 2-07-075980-6
THE WORD ROMANCE in French is Spanish in origin, and J. M. G. Le Clezio has increasingly been a writer, in this book and others, drawing upon Spanish and Latin American culture. The seven pieces in Cceur brule et autres romances might be likened to romances, poetical texts evoking otherness, especially the otherness of women, from the novelist's viewpoint, as well as other cultures - other in contrast with Le Clezio's touchstone, the culture of southern France. For example, in the first and most substantial piece here, "Coeur brine," Le Clezio narrates the tale of a young woman's degradation as she lives on the margins of society, in southern France, where she falls in with drug dealers, hoodlums, and others willing to exploit her. Her boyfriend, in fact, sells her to dealers who then...