STOCKHOLM, Sweden — France's Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio won the 2008 Nobel Prize in literature today for works characterized by "poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy."

Le Clezio, 68, is the first French writer to win the prestigious award since Chinese-born Frenchman Gao Xingjian was honored in 2000.

Academy Permanent Secretary Horace Engdahl said Le Clezio won the prize "because he is a great prose writer and a narrator."