STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - French writer Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio won the 2008 Nobel prize for literature, the prize committee said on Thursday.
The Swedish Academy, which decides the winner of the prestigious 10 million Swedish crown (811,204 pound) prize, praised Le Clezio 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 Clezio was an "author of new departures, poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy, explorer of a humanity beyond and below the reigning civilisation."
All but one of the prizes were established in the will of 19th century dynamite tycoon Alfred Nobel and have been handed out since 1901. The economics award was established by Sweden's central bank in 1968.
