In awarding him the Nobel Prize in 2008, the Swedish Academy hailed J. M. G. Le Cl zio as an "author of new departures, poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy, explorer of humanity beyond and below the reigning civilisation." The outlying humanity that Le Cl zio explores in this collection of stories finds its expression in the understanding of children. The world of Mondo and Other Stories is that of a natural world pushed to the margins by...