Haiti's Lahens, Israel's Shalev scoop French literary award

An all-woman jury on Monday awarded France's prestigious Femina Prize to Haiti's Yanick Lahens and Israeli author and suicide-attack survivor Zeruya Shalev for their family-based epics.

Lahens scooped the French-language section of the award for Bain de Lune, a novel about three generations of the same family interwoven with political opportunism and other challenges facing her home country.

Shalev, meanwhile, won the best foreign-language part of the prize for The Remains of Love, about a mother in her twilight years who reflects on painful memories linked to her demanding father, her uneven love for her two children and a loveless marriage.