French writer Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio, whose early works stood out for their rich and remarkable constructions and literary techniques, is this year’s winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature.

The Swedish Academy, who usually selects the winner of the impressive prize of 10 million Swedish crown ($1.4 million), acclaimed the author for his exploratory novels, as well as his outstanding essays and children’s books.

The academy explained in a statement that the 68-year-old writer was an “author of new departures, poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy, explorer of a humanity beyond and below the reigning civilization.”

Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio’s breakthrough as a novelist came in 1980 with “Desert,” a work praised by the academy for its brilliant portrayals of a “lost culture in the North African desert” standing out against an illustration of Europe “seen through the eyes of unwanted immigrants.”

Le Clezio’s most recent works include “Ballaciner” (2007), a book the academy described as a “deeply personal essay about the history of the art of film,” as well as “Ourania” (2006) and “L’Africain” (2004).

The writer has also won several literary awards in France, including the Prix Larbaud in 1972 and the Grand Prix Jean Giono in 1997.

Last year, the Nobel Prize in literature went to British writer Doris Lessing, while the last French author to be awarded with the honor was Gao Xingjian, a political refugee who had become a French citizen. He won the prize in 2000.

The Nobel prize medals are due to be handed out at a ceremony in Stockholm on December 10.