The controversial best-selling author Michel Houellebecq has won France’s most coveted literary prize - the Prix Goncourt - for his new novel.
The winner - who gets a check for a symbolic €10 and an almost certain boost in sales - was announced to a crowd of journalists at Paris restaurant Drouant.
The 10-member jury, which meets at the establishment once a month, then retreated inside for its customary gastronomic lunch.
Former Co Cork resident Houellebecq (52), made his name with Les Particules Elementaires (The Elementary Particles) and is best known for La Possibilite d'une Ile (The Possibility of an Island).
His latest novel, La Carte et Le Territoire (The Map and the Territory), tells of a solitary, misanthropic artist who becomes a critical darling and commercial success almost in spite of himself.
Jed Martin falls for a beautiful Russian named Olga, gains success with his portraits of people from various walks of life - including Houellebecq - and becomes entangled in a police investigation.
It is equal parts murder mystery and a meditation on the decline of post-industrial France, depicted as a sort of Disneyland for Chinese and Russian tourists.
Houellebecq’s previous novels courted controversy with explicit sex scenes and disparaging comments about women, minorities and Islam.
First awarded in 1903, the Prix Goncourt has honoured authors such as Marcel Proust, Simone de Beauvoir and Marguerite Duras.