France's top book prize goes to tale of East-West ties

Writer Mathias Enard won France's top literary prize today in a race dominated by books about West's love-hate relationship with Islam and the Arab world.
A scholar of both Arabic and Persian, Barcelona-based Enard, 43, wove a poetic eulogy to the long history of cultural exchanges between East and West in "Boussole" ("Compass"), and had been the critics' favourite for the award.
The novel has already won the booksellers' prize -- the Nancy-Le Point -- for its nimbly erudite voyage which flies in the face of many of the cliches about the so-called clash of civilisations.
Seven out of 16 critics polled by one of France's leading books weeklies said Enard -- an academic who has lived in Tehran, Berlin and Beirut, where his breakthrough novel "Zone" (2008) is set -- most "deserved" the prize, and he told reporters he was "extraordinarily happy" as the news of his win broke.

The four novels in the final reckoning for the Goncourt, the oldest and most prestigious in the French-speaking world, dealt in one way or another with the Middle East or the long twilight of France's colonial entanglement in the region.
"I like a winning book which tells of the world in which we live," the head of the jury, Bernard Pivot, told French radio on the eve of the often-heated lunch at a Paris restaurant over which the winner is chosen.

Although the victor gets only 10 euros (USD 11) in prize money, the Goncourt almost guarantees a boost in sales of 450,000 copies or more, placing it instantly among the year's bestsellers.

As well as "Zone", Enard's 2012 story of young Moroccans adrift in Europe "Street of Thieves" has already been translated into English.
But his "Parle-leur de batailles, de rois et d'elephants" ("Tell them of battles, kings and elephants"), which won the Goncourt's youth prize in 2010, France's second most lucrative literary award, has still to find a English-language publisher.