PARIS, Jan 24 ― A former prostitute who became an award-winning novelist and filmmaker, Virginie Despentes, has won a new prize dedicated to boosting the stature of French writers in the English-speaking world.

A jury of French writers and English and American literary agents voted to give the first Anais Nin Prize to Despentes for her latest novel, Vernon Subutex 1, a fast-paced thriller set in a typically grimy underworld.

The award is named after France's famed mid-twentieth-century writer Anais Nin who was one of the few to write in both English and French and be translated in both directions.

Despentes, 45, is well-known in France for a controversial and confrontational series of books and films informed by her past work in a massage parlour in the southern city of Lyons.

Among the film adaptations are “Pretty Things” starring Marion Cotillard and feminist revenge flick “Rape Me”.

Vernon Subutex 1 treads familiar territory for Despentes, following a former record-store owner who becomes destitute and finds himself homeless and drifting among a motley crew of ex-porn stars, coked-up filmmakers and neo-Nazis.

The prize “rewards a singular voice and sensibility, an originality of imagination and audacity in the face of the moral order,” the organisers said in a statement.

As part of the award, which aims to put the spotlight on Francophone writers yet to make a splash in the huge English-language market, Vernon Subutex 1 will be translated into English. ― AFP-Relaxnews