France: Weyergans wins prestigious literary award

Francois Weyergans, to his own surprise, won France's most prestigious literary award, the Goncourt Prize, on Thursday for his book whose main character is a writer struggling to pen a much-awaited novel.

Weyergans, with his "Trois jours chez ma mere" (Three Days at My Mother's), won out over Michel Houellebecq, the most talked-about novelist in France these days and his book "La possibilite d'une Ile" (The Possibility of an Island).

The book concerns "the relationship between a son who isn't very well mentally and a mother who isn't very well physically," he said. Weyergans succeeds Laurent Gaude who won the Goncourt last year for "Le Soleil des Scorta" (published in English as "The House of Scorta"), the AP reports.

The 102-year-old Goncourt guarantees literary acclaim and high sales for an author. Past winners include Marcel Proust, Simone de Beauvoir and Marguerite Duras. A.M.