Dowagiac author Dr. Michael Collins Sept. 8 received the grand prize at the Deauville American Film Festival in France.

The literary prize is one of the top prizes given in France for fiction, according to Collins, who, after teaching three years at Southwestern Michigan College, has “decided it was time to refocus on writing.”

His latest novel, Midnight in a Perfect Life (Of Uncertain Significance in the United States), has been translated into 16 languages so far.

Collins’ award is called Literary Prize Lucien Barriere.

It is given to the outstanding American work of fiction in 2011.

Previous winners include May 1994 Dowagiac Dogwood Fine Arts Festival Visiting Author Joyce Carol Oates, Paul Auster and Bret Eaton Ellis.

In conjunction with the prize, a major motion picture to be set in Chicago is currently in negotiations, with such stars as Christian Bale and interest from screenwriter David Marconi, who wrote “Enemy of the State.”

Collins said, “The award allowed me access to Shirley MacClaine, Naomi Watts and Danny Glover, all of whom I had dinner with during the festival. France is a unique country in that it often gives equal billing to writers as it does to movie stars. The amble down the red carpet each night was strangely satisfying and terrifying.”

Collins said Monday that he is “in the early stages of a new novel called ‘The Solitude of Lot,’ an apocalyptic novel about the death of the information age. It draws upon my experiences as a programmer at Microsoft in the mid-Nineties. It is set around 2020 and is a mystery into the forces or person behind the attacks that destroy the modern world as we know it.

“I will continue to live in Dowagiac and want to continue working with SMC students,” Collins continued, “hopefully providing internships in the film business if the movie progresses and begins shooting in Chicago. There are some great writers at the college who are on the cusp of breaking out — especially Marc Hopkins (profiled in the Daily News Sept. 2), Amanda Barber, John Crothers, Mason McMillen and Brian Harrison.”