Paris - Afghan-born Atiq Rahimi was on Monday named winner of France's most prestigious literary prize, the Prix Goncourt, for his novel Synge Sabour.

The title of the novel - Rahimi's fourth, but the first to be written in French - is taken from the Persian name of a magic black stone that represents patience and which absorbs all suffering and pain.

The book is in the form of a monologue of an Afghan woman addressing her soldier-husband who lies in a coma in their house.

The monologue ultimately becomes an outcry for all Afghan women - indeed, all women - about wishing to become free of domestic, social and religious oppression and a tirade against the man whom she is nursing.