American Wins Top French Literary Prize

"The Kindly Ones" is now officially the literary event of the year (and 2008, too). The debut novel of Jonathan Littel, (the son of the terrific spy novelist Robert Littel), it tells the story of an SS officer recounting the extermination of the Jews. More than 900 pages long, it was written in French as a tribute to Littel's favorite authors (he grew up there and is bi-lingual) and the French have embraced it. They just awarded the book their Goncourt Prize, the top literary award in a country where such things matter a great deal. The book was a sensation at a recent international book fair; it's being translated into English and will come out here in 2008.