Paris  - American author Dave Egger's novel What Is the What has won the 2009 Prix Medicis for best foreign work of fiction, the Medici jury announced Wednesday.

A fictional reworking of a true story told to the author by the book's hero, What Is the What describes the odyssey of a boy from his native village in Sudan, to a Kenyan refugee camp, and ultimately to Atlanta.

The 39-year-old Eggers became an instant literary star with the publication of his first book, the partly fictionalized memoir A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius.

Eggers has also become a successful screenwriter, and co-wrote the scripts for two films currently in wide distribution, Where the Wild Things Are and Away We Go.(dpa)