[In the following review, Thompson relates how Poisson d'or follows in the thematic tradition of Le Clézio's previous novels.]

Although sold into virtual slavery early in life, Laila leads an existence with Lalla Asma—her “mistress” and “grandmother”—that is far from desolate. The death of the latter, however, leads Laila to embark on a potentially endless journey whose destination and purpose she never comes to understand. Eventually she will arrive in France as an illegal immigrant and there will meet many like her—Gypsies, North and West Africans, Haitians—who seek their place in a world hostile to those who do not or cannot conform and adjust to its norms. Laila despairs that “il n'avait un endroit paisible dans le monde, nulle part.” As this need to find a welcome home is unrealized in France, her adventure will lead her to the United States—Boston, Chicago, and California—and to an improbable new life first as a singer and later as a jazz pianist. Yet she will also again encounter those who find themselves marginalized in society: African Americans, Mexican Americans, drug dealers. Laila's adventure in America will be brief, resulting, ironically, in her return to France in order to play in a jazz festival and in her decision to return to Africa to complete her voyage.

The reader already familiar with the novels of J. M. G. Le Clézio (see e.g. WLT 66:2, p. 304, 67:3, p. 585, and 70:4, p. 909) will find in Poisson d'or many of those themes present in his previous works: the fate of the oppressed, the tension between so-called First and Third World societies, the both physical and spiritual journey of self-discovery. In particular, readers will detect many affinities between this work and Désert (1980), which also focuses on the life of a young North African woman who, like Laila, leaves Africa only to return in the end, abandoning an unsatisfying Western world in order to rediscover her true origins and identity.