Can an authorship be symbolised by a nut? Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio picked this nut from one of the few surviving tambalacoque trees on the island of Mauritius. According to legend, the seeds of this tree were once spread via the droppings of the dodo. When the Europeans arrived on the island in the 1600s, all the dodos were gradually killed and the seeds of the tambalacoque tree could no longer germinate. Le Clézio often writes about the encounter of Western and other cultures. He is often critical of the way Europeans have treated peoples in other parts of the world.
Jean Marie Gustave Le Clézio donated the nut and the letter to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2009.
