Israeli author Aharon Appelfeld and Dublin-based writer Hugo Hamilton were on Wednesday awarded two of France's most prestigious literature prizes for best foreign book.
Seventy-two-year-old Appelfeld's The Story of A Life won the Medicis prize for his account of a childhood in Eastern Europe, World War II, and after the war.
Hamilton won the Femina prize for his account of his Irish-German childhood The Speckled People.
Published in France under the title Sang Impur (Impure Blood), it is only the second of the 51-year-old author's works to be translated into French.
The main Femina award went to Jean-Paul Dubois for Une Vie Francaise (A French Life), a family saga that follows the changes in French society since the late 1950s.
The Femina award, which was created exactly 100 years ago, bears no cash prize but can be a big boost for sales.
Marie Nimier's book La Reine du Silence (The Queen of Silence) won the main Medicis award with a look into the author's relationship with her father, Roger Nimier, also a writer.
Israeli, Irish writers win top French book awards
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