It was not always easy to be a prophet in one's own country, the writer Michel Houellebecq, whose work has caused controversy in France, said in Dublin on Saturday night when he was presented with the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award for 2002 by the President, Mrs McAleese.
The €100,000 prize is the wealthiest award in the world for a single work of fiction in English.
Speaking of how grateful he was to receive the prize, Mr Houellebecq mused on what constituted a French writer and was brave enough in front of an Irish audience to say that there were those who considered Samuel Beckett a French writer. Mr Houellebecq, who lives on Bere Island off the coast of Co Cork and who is not known for his great attachment to France, said that as he chose to write in French, he must be considered a French writer.
Mr Houellebecq, who was accompanied by his wife Marie-Pierre, won the award for his novel Atomised. The other shortlisted authors were Antoni Libera, Helen De Witt, Margaret Atwood, Peter Carey, Carlos Fuentes and Irish writer Michael Collins.