Nobel Prize for Literature awarded

Every year since 1901 the Nobel Prize has been awarded for achievements in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and for peace. The Nobel Prize is an international award administered by the Nobel Foundation in Stockholm, Sweden. On Thursday, the prize for literature was announced.

Listen to Matthew French's report: 

The very first Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded in 1901 to the French poet and philosopher Sully Prudhomme, who in his poetry showed the "rare combination of the qualities of both heart and intellect".

One hundred and thirteen years later French author Patrick Modiano won 2014 Nobel Prize in Literature, a prize worth eight million kronor (USD 1,000,000). Described  by the Nobel academy as "a Marcel Proust of our time", his work took on historical interests. Patrick Modiano's work regularly featured Nazi occupied France, and Paris in particular.

Professor Peter Englund, Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy made the announcement in Stockholm.

Patrick Modiano beat the favourites Japanese writer Haruki Murakami and Kenyan novelist, poet and playwright Ngugi wa Thiong'o.

The last French writer to win the prize was Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio in 2008.