Three Irish writers have previously won the French award, including Keith Ridgeway, Hugo Hamilton and, most recently, the Sunday Tribune's Nuala O Faolain in 2006 for her novel The Story of Chicago May. "I think it says a lot about France's admirable openness to the literature of other cultures that they have a major literary award for a book by a non-French author, " said O'Connor this weekend.

"It also means that the book is having a life in France, that it is reaching readers, which is always the most important thing." O'Connor previously won the Prix Zepter for European novel of the year for Star of the Sea in 2003.

The Prix Femina consists of an exclusively female jury and was initiated in 1904 in response to the apparent sexism of France's premier literary award, the Prix Goncourt. "As to whether or not an all-women jury would respond in the same way as a predominantly male one to a book, I don't know, but Redemption Falls . . . at least to me . . . is very much a story of three strong women as well as one man.

The winner of the Prix Femina will be announced on 12 November.