Nov. 10 (Bloomberg) -- Atiq Rahimi won France's most prestigious literary prize, the 105-year-old Prix Goncourt, for ``Syngue Sabour,'' the story of a woman in a country resembling Afghanistan whose husband has been wounded in battle and now lies as paralyzed as a stone.

The winner -- who gets a check for a symbolic 10 euros ($12.90) and an almost certain boost in sales -- was announced to a crowd of journalists hovering outside Paris restaurant Drouant, where the 10-member Academie Goncourt jury meets once a month.

The four novels that made the final round of this year's Goncourt tell stories set in a broad range of centuries and continents. The plots unfold in places and eras as different as 17th-century Brazil, 18th-century Paris and Manhattan in the Roaring '20s. ``Syngue Sabour'' won on a 7-3 vote, the jury said before retreating inside the Drouant for its customary gastronomic lunch.

``It's a book of extraordinary quality,'' said jury member Edmonde Charles-Roux, characterizing the narrative as a moving account of the oppressive nature of Afghan society.

Rahimi was born in Afghanistan and ``Syngue Sabour'' is the first book he has written in French. The Persian title means ``Pierre de Patience,'' or ``Stone of Patience.''

The 150-page story is set in a country resembling Rahimi's native land and is narrated by the paralyzed combatant's wife. Sitting at his bedside, she talks, not knowing if he can hear or understand. Freed from normal constraints, she reveals long- buried secrets about their life together. The book was published by P.O.L.

Roaring '20s

Rahimi's closest rival for this year's Goncourt, the jury said, was Michel Le Bris's ``La Beaute du Monde'' (``The World's Beauty''), a Grasset novel in which a glamorous couple of New Yorkers, Martin and Osa Johnson, dash from the jungles of Africa to Manhattan's Algonquin Hotel and back during the Roaring '20s.

The book opens in 1938, with Osa widowed and drifting into alcoholism as she tells her life story to a woman assigned to write her memoirs.

The other finalists included Jean-Marie Blas de Robles's ``La ou les Tigres Sont Chez Eux'' (``Where the Tigers Feel at Home''). This labyrinthine novel traces the quest of Eleazard von Wogau, a French journalist living in Brazil, to separate the facts from the fables surrounding the life of German encyclopedist Athanase Kircher, a sort of Leonardo da Vinci of the Baroque age. Eleazard's exploration takes him from the Europe of Kircher's day to the Brazilian favelas of today.

Prix Medicis

Published by Zulma, the book was 10 years in the writing and had already captured the Prix Medicis, considered the most intellectual of the cluster of French book awards granted each autumn. The literary season got an extra boost last month, when Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio was granted the Nobel Prize for Literature, marking the first time a French writer had won the prize since Claude Simon in 1985.

The fourth shortlisted novel was Jean-Baptiste Del Amo's ``Une Education Libertine'' (``A Libertine Education''), the story of an 18th-century rent boy in Paris.

The Gallimard novel centers on Gaspard, a young social climber who leaves his home in western Brittany to seek his fortune in ``the dirty, stinking bellybutton of France,'' as Del Amo calls the capital. The year is 1760, Louis XV is on the throne, the countryside is teeming with misery, and Paris is open to the amoral charms of young adventurers like Gaspard.

In other French literary news, Tierno Monenembo was announced the winner of the coveted Renaudot prize for ``Le Roi de Kahel'' (``The King of Kahel''), a book set in 19th-century West Africa. The Renaudot, which dates to 1926, is by tradition announced together with the Goncourt at the Drouant.

To contact the writer on the story: Celestine Bohlen in Paris at cbohlen1@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: November 10, 2008 10:12 EST