LeClezio says he became a writer due to bad eyesight

Nobel literature laureate Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio said Saturday that he took up writing only after poor eyesight stopped him from becoming a sailor.

Arriving in Stockholm, Sweden, to receive the prestigious award, the 68-year-old Frenchman said he had also considered a career in architecture.

"My abilities in mathematics were poor ... so my third choice was being a writer," Le Clezio told reporters at the waterfront Grand Hotel.

"I'm more a storyteller than anything else," he said in French. "I do not write intending to demonstrate something or to attack something or to defend something."

In its Nobel citation, the Swedish Academy praised Le Clezio for his "poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy" in such works as "Terra Amata," "The Book of Flights" and "Desert."

Le Clezio was the 14th French writer to win since the Nobel Prizes began in 1901.