The Paris-based Institut Culturel Roumain decided to award Benjamin Fondane International Prize for Francophone literature to Moroccan poet Abdellatif Laabi. The prize will be awarded to the Laabi on March 24 in Paris, said a statement of the French cultural institute. The Paris-based Institut Culturel Roumain offers the prize each year in memory of the late poet and philosopher of Roman origin Benjamin Fondane to distinguished francophone writers whose mother tongue is not French. Born in 1942, Abdellatif Laâbi is an eminent figure of Morocco’s francophone literature. He lived in Paris suburbs since 1985 and received the renowned Goncourt prize for Poetry in 2009.