Nobel Prize in Literature by French writer Anne Ernault

The Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded Thursday to French novelist Anne Ernault, the Swedish Academy announced, a writer known for her effortless, easy-going style inspired by her personal experience of class and gender.

The Nobel Committee cited the 82-year-old Erno's "courage and ingenuity" in "discovering the roots, distance and collective limitations of personal memory".

Erno described winning the award as a "great honor" as well as a "great responsibility" given to her to testify for "fairness and justice".

"I consider that I have been given a great honor, and for me at the same time a great responsibility, a responsibility that was given to me by awarding me the Nobel Prize," she told Swedish television.

"It means bearing witness to some form of fairness and justice in relation to the world," she added.

Nobel Prize winners in each category receive a medal and ten million Swedish crowns (about $911,400,000), to be shared if more than one person wins.

Last year's award winner was Tanzanian-born writer Abdel Razzaq Garnah, whose work focuses on the plight of refugees, colonialism and racism.

Ernault, whose name has been proposed for years for the prestigious award, has become the 17th woman to receive it, out of a total of 119 winners in the literature category since the first Nobel Prize was awarded in 1901. She also became the 16th French winner in Nobel history.

Erno receives the Nobel Prize from King Carl XVI Gustaf during an official ceremony to be held in Stockholm on December 10, coinciding with the anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel in 1896, who established the prizes in his last will.

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