Historian Natalie Zemon Davis has won Norway's Holberg International Memorial Prize. (University of Toronto)

Natalie Zemon Davis, a University of Toronto history scholar, has won one of the world's top academic prizes — worth $768,000.

The Holberg International Memorial Prize, established by the Norwegian parliament in 2003, is awarded for outstanding scholarly work in the arts and humanities, social sciences, law and theology.

The 81-year-old Davis, who is also professor emerita at Princeton University, was given the prize for her narrative approach to the field of history.

The Norwegian awards citation praised Davis, an adjunct professor of history and professor of medieval studies at the university, as "one of the most creative historians writing today," and said she has inspired a generation of younger historians and promoted "cross-fertilization between disciplines."

It praised her work for its creativity and compelling narrative, saying it "shows how particular events can be narrated and analyzed so as to reveal deeper historical tendencies and underlying patterns of thought and action."

The Detroit native is the author of numerous books on social and cultural history and the study of women and gender.

Her book best known to the public, The Return of Martin Guerre, followed the famous case of a 16th-century impostor in a village in the Pyrenees to explore the concept of personal identity. The book first appeared in French in 1982 at the same time as the première of the film by Daniel Vigne.

"This is outstanding news for the University of Toronto, and a fitting tribute to the stature of our humanities scholars in the international community," Peter Lewis, the University of Toronto's acting vice-president, research, said in a statement.

The prize will be awarded in Bergen on June 9.

With files from The Canadian Press