Asturias Prize pushes Kadare closert to Nobel

Controversial author Ismail Kadare, whose surreal, Kafkaesque novels twice had him exiled to the countryside of his native Albania and who now lives as an expatriate in France, has received the Prince of Asturias award in the Letters category.

The 50,000 Euro prize, which has previously gone to Doris Lessing, Mario Vargas Llosa, Juan Rulfo, Gunter Grass, Margaret Atwood, and Arthur Miller, is considered second only to the Nobel Prize. It honors a writer's complete corpus and can only be given once in each category.

Kadare has previously won awards such as the inaugural Man Booker International Prize in 2005, and he has long been considered a contender for the Nobel.

Kadare wins Albanian award

Ismail Kadare, winner of the Man Booker International Prize and nominee for a Nobel Prize in Literature, won a best book prize on June 11 at Albania's KULT culture awards for his novel The Wrong Supper.

The author, whose previous works include The Palace of Dreams and The Three-Arched Bridge, divides his time between Albania and France.