Pallade Veneta - Laurent Mauvignier wins France's top literary award for family saga

The jury only needed one round of voting to select the 58-year-old author for "La Maison Vide" ("The Empty House"), an opus inspired by stories about his father's family that he heard while growing up.

"I'm overjoyed," Mauvignier said as he received the prize.

It's "a huge reward because it's a book that comes from (my) childhood and spans several generations."

Mauvignier had been vying for the Goncourt against fellow French writer and scriptwriter Emmanuel Carrere, Mauritian-French writer Nathacha Appanah, and Belgian author Caroline Lamarche.

The prestigious Goncourt prize usually sparks book sales in the hundreds of thousands for the winning author.

But the prize money is a meagre cheque for 10 euros ($11) that winners usually prefer framing on the wall rather than cashing in.

Mauvignier's previous books translated into English include a thriller set in rural France called "The Birthday Party".

He also wrote "The Wound", a novel exploring the legacy of the Algerian war of independence, and "In the Crowd", set in the runup to the 1985 football fan crush at the Heysel Stadium in Belgium that killed 39 people.

C.Conti--PV