Francophonie Five Continents Prize 2014 has been awarded to Algerian writer and journalist Kamel Daoud for his first novel "Meursault, contre-enquête" (Meursault, the Counter-Enquiry), organizers said Monday.
The award will be handed over to the winner on November 28 in Dakar, as part of 15th Francophonie Summit.
The panel of judges was chaired by French novelist Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio, Nobel Prize of Literature 2008.
Kamel Daoud is the author of many books, including "Le Minotaure 504" (Sabine Wespieser Publishing House, 2011), which was first published in Algiers under the title "La Preface of a Ghost Writer" (Barzakh Publishing House, 2008).
"Meursault, contre-enquête," published in Algeria by Barzakh Publishing House, in 2013, and in France by Actes Sud, in 2014, is the first novel to be written by Kamel Daoud.
Born in 1970 in Mostaganem (355-km west of Algiers), Kamel Daoud works at the daily newspaper Quotidien d'Oran, as a journalist, and is the editorialist of the electronic newspaper "Algerie Focus".