French writer Le Clezio won the 2008 Nobel Prize in Literature, the Swedish Academy announced Thursday．

　　The Academy cited Le Clezio as “author of new departures and poetic adventure, explorer of humanity beyond civilization．”

　　Le Clezio, 48, received much attention with his first novel The Interrogation in 1963 and made the breakthrough as a novelist with Desert in 1980, for which he was rewarded a prize from the French Academy．

　　This novel Desert contains magnificent images of a lost culture in the North African desert, contrast with a description of Europe seen through the eyes of unwanted immigrants, the Swedish Academy said in the statement．

　　The emphasis in Le Clezio’s work has increasingly moved in the direction of an exploration of the world of childhood and of his own family history, the academy added．

　　Le Clezio was born 1940 in Nice of France, but both parents had strong family connections with the former French colony Mauritius．At the age of eight, he moved to Nigeria with his family．During the month-long voyage to Nigeria, he began his literary career with two books Un long voyage and Oradi noir．

　　He has taught at universities in Bangkok, Mexico City, Boston, Austin and Albuquerque among other places．Since the 1990s, Le Clezio and his wife share their time between Albuquerque in New Mexico, the island of Mauritius and Nice．

　　This was the fourth of the prestigious Nobel Prizes handed out this year, with awards in chemistry, physics and medicine made in the past three days．

　　The Nobel Prizes have been awarded annually since 1901 to those who “conferred(给予)the greatest benefit on mankind during the preceding year．”

　　The annual Nobel Prizes are usually announced in October and are handed out on Dec．10, the anniversary of the 1896 death of Alfred Nobel, a Swedish industrialist and the inventor of dynamite．

　　Each prize consists of a medal, a personal diploma and a cash award of 10 million Swedish kronor(1.4 million U．S．dollars)．

阅读下列短文，从每题所给的四个选项(A、B、C、D)中选出最佳选项。

　　HAVANA(Reuters)-U．S．Cuban and Mexican scientists have drawn up plans for joint research in the Gulf of Mexico, in another sign of improvement in long-unfriendly U．S．-Cuba relations．

　　In a meeting in Havana this week, they agreed on collecting information about the Gulf, a body of water shared by the three countries but about which little cooperative research has been done in recent years．

　　“This is a logical, low-risk area in which to begin discussions with Cuba．It is without question in our common interest to share science and ideas on our shared resources like the Gulf of Mexico,”Environmental Defense Fund senior official Dan Whittle said on Tuesday．

　　Whittle was among 30 Americans, 30 Cubans and six Mexicans at the meeting, held on Sunday and Monday ahead of an international meeting on ocean science this week in the Cuban capital．

　　“We're starting now to enter a new era of cooperation,”said meeting organizer David Guggenheim, American marine scientist．

　　The plan assumes that U．S．-Cuba relations will continue to get better under President Barack Obama, who has said he wants to end five decades of bitterness between the two countries separated by just 90 miles of ocean．

　　He has initiated talks on migration and regain of postal service with Cuba and allowed Cuban Americans to travel and send money freely to their homeland．

　　But a general travel ban to Cuba for most Americans remains in effect, as does the United States' 47-year-long trade prohibition against the communist-led island．

　　There are also restrictions on travel of U．S．and Cuban academics between the two countries, although it has gotten easier under Obama to obtain permission, Guggenheim said．

　　Whittle said Obama needs to remove all obstacles for scientists to assure a“free flow of information”between the countries．

　　The plan of action calls for shared projects to track marine animals and to study such things as the effects of pollutants and climate change on coral reefs．

　　Cuba has rented out much of its offshore area for oil exploration, which when it begins will bring danger of oil spills(漏油)that computer models show would flow north to Florida．

　　“We need a dialogue to talk about coordinated emergency response．Everything points to the need for cooperation and communication, not continuation of a Cold War policy,”Guggenheim said．