The 2014 winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature had been honored years ago by the Saudi government, a news website reported on Thursday.

French novelist Patrick Modiano had his novel “Dans le café de la jeunesse perdue" translated into Arabic in 2008.

Higher Education Minister Khaled Al-Anqari had set up a translation office at the Saudi Cultural Attaché's office in Paris and Modiano’s novel was selected for translation, according to the report. The novelist had been happy about the translation and thanked the Saudi government at the time.

Modiano, who has made a lifelong study of the Nazi occupation and its effects on his country, won for what one academic called “crystal clear and resonant” prose.

Modiano, a 69-year-old resident of Paris, is an acclaimed writer in France but not well known in the English-speaking world. The Swedish Academy said on Thursday it gave the $1.1 million (SR4.1 million) prize to him for evoking “the most ungraspable human destinies” and uncovering the world of life behind the Nazi occupation.