French writer Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio has been awarded the 2008 Nobel prize for literature.
The Swedish Academy, which decides the winner of the 10 million Swedish crown (€1 million) prize, praised Le Clézio (68) for his adventurous novels, essays and children's literature.
The award marked the first time a French writer has won the Nobel literature prize since 1985.
The academy said in its statement that Le Clézio was an "author of new departures, poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy, explorer of a humanity beyond and below the reigning civilisation".
Le Clézio made his breakthrough as a novelist with
Desert, in 1980, a work the academy said "contains magnificent images of a lost a culture in the North African desert contrasted with a depiction of Europe seen through the eyes of unwanted immigrants".
Le Clézio won a prize from the French Academy for the work.
The Swedish Academy said Le Clézio from early on "stood out as an ecologically engaged author, an orientation that is accentuated with the novels
Terra Amata, The Book of Flights,
War, and
The Giants.'
The decision was in line with the Swedish Academy's recent picks of European authors for the award. Last year, it went to Doris Lessing.
The Nobel peace prize will be awarded tomorrow, followed by the economics award on Monday.