According to a press release from HarperCollins, two-time AWP Award Series winner David Vann is the recepient of the 2010 Prix Médicis étranger, France’s coveted prize for best foreign novel. Vann won the prize for his novella “Sukkwan Island,” which was published in his collection, Legend of a Suicide. The collection deals largely with the relationship between father and son and the theme of suicide. Legend of a Suicide has won seven other awards, including the AWP Award Series in Short Fiction and was published by the University of Massachusetts Press. Currently, a film version by Chris Meloni is in the works.

Vann accepted the award in Paris on November 3. In forty years of the award’s existence eight other Americans have won, including Philip Roth, Paul Auster, and Dave Eggers last year. Notable foreign winners include Finland’s Sofi Oksanen, Norway’s Per Petterson, and the UK’s William Boyd.