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Michel Houellebecq lives in County Cork, Ireland. He is the bestselling author of Atomised, Platform, Lanzarote and Whatever. He is also a poet, essayist and rap artist.
The new novel by the enfant terrible of European writing proves as controversial as its much-debated predecessors and will have readers and critics arguing for ages yet again. The as-ever-Houellebecq-like alter ego narrator is a minor middle-aged academic whose weasely ways are familiar in his politically incorrect attitudes to women, race and a form of intellectual superiority and pretentions that are terribly French. When a pro-Muslim politician wins the elections, and the country is overtaken by a revolutionary wave of Islamic fervour and purges, he is unable to retreat from his studies of a particularly arcane figure of French literature Joris K. Huysmans and soon has to take a stand, and willingly embraces the betrayal of western ideals with abandon, insofar as it will lead to professional advancement beyond his worth and possible power over women he was previously unable to seduce and obtain. A striking portrait in cowardice and compromise that will have you squirming, stylishly rendered by Paris Review editor Lorin Stein's fluid translation that transforms the mechanics of a particularly Gallic political landscape and cultural background into something more universal and understandable, and turns the book into a worrying warning bell, behind the facade of its dislikable and treacherous hero of sorts. A book you'll love to hate. ~ Maxim Jakubowski
In a near-future France, Francois, a middle-aged academic, is watching his life slowly dwindle to nothing. His sex drive is diminished, his parents are dead, and his lifelong obsession - the ideas and works of the nineteenth-century novelist Joris-Karl Huysmans - has led him nowhere. In a late-capitalist society where consumerism has become the new religion, Francois is spiritually barren, but seeking to fill the vacuum of his existence. And he is not alone. As the 2022 Presidential election approaches, two candidates emerge as favourites: Marine Le Pen of the Front National, and Muhammed Ben Abbes of the nascent Muslim Fraternity. Forming a controversial alliance with the mainstream parties, Ben Abbes sweeps to power, and overnight the country is transformed. Islamic law comes into force: women are veiled, polygamy is encouraged and, for Francois, life is set on a new course. Submission is both a devastating satire and a profound meditation on isolation, faith and love. It is a startling new work by one of the most provocative and prescient novelists of today.
The new novel from the bestselling, highly acclaimed and always controversial author of Atomised.
The work of Michel Houellebecq - one of the most widely read and controversial novelists of our time - is marked by the thought of Schopenhauer. When Houellebecq came across a copy of Schopenhauer's Aphorisms in a library in his mid-twenties, he was bowled over by it and he hunted down a copy of his major philosophical work, The World as Will and Representation. Houellebecq found in Schopenhauer - the radical pessimist, the chronicler of human suffering, the lonely misanthrope - a powerful conception of the human condition and of the future that awaits us, and when Houellebecq's first writings appeared in the early 1990s, the influence of Schopenhauer was everywhere apparent. But it was only much later, in 2005, that Houellebecq began to translate and write a commentary on Schopenhauer's work. He thought of turning it into a book but soon abandoned the idea and the text remained unpublished until 2017. Now available in English for the first time, In the Presence of Schopenhauer is the story of a remarkable encounter between a novelist and a philosopher and a testimony to the deep and enduring impact of Schopenhauer's philosophy on one of France's greatest living writers.
The work of Michel Houellebecq - one of the most widely read and controversial novelists of our time - is marked by the thought of Schopenhauer. When Houellebecq came across a copy of Schopenhauer's Aphorisms in a library in his mid-twenties, he was bowled over by it and he hunted down a copy of his major philosophical work, The World as Will and Representation. Houellebecq found in Schopenhauer - the radical pessimist, the chronicler of human suffering, the lonely misanthrope - a powerful conception of the human condition and of the future that awaits us, and when Houellebecq's first writings appeared in the early 1990s, the influence of Schopenhauer was everywhere apparent. But it was only much later, in 2005, that Houellebecq began to translate and write a commentary on Schopenhauer's work. He thought of turning it into a book but soon abandoned the idea and the text remained unpublished until 2017. Now available in English for the first time, In the Presence of Schopenhauer is the story of a remarkable encounter between a novelist and a philosopher and a testimony to the deep and enduring impact of Schopenhauer's philosophy on one of France's greatest living writers.
LONGLISTED FOR THE 2020 INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE THE MOST IMPORTANT FRENCH BOOK OF THE YEAR ___________________ 'One cannot be said to be keeping abreast of contemporary literature without reading Houellebecq's work.' Karl Ove Knausgaard, New York Times Dissatisfied and discontent, Florent-Claude Labrouste feels he is dying of sadness. His young girlfriend hates him and his career as an engineer at the Ministry of Agriculture is pretty much over. His only relief comes in the form of a pill - white, oval, small. Recently released for public consumption, Captorix is a new brand of anti-depressant which works by altering the brain's release of serotonin. Armed with this new drug, Labrouste decides to abandon his life in Paris and return to the Normandy countryside where he used to work promoting regional cheeses, and where he had once been in love. But instead of happiness, he finds a rural community devastated by globalisation and European agricultural policies, and local farmers longing, like Labrouste himself, for an impossible return to what they remember as the golden age. Written by one of the most provocative and prophetic novelists of his generation, Serotonin is at once a devastating story of solitude, longing and individual suffering, and a powerful criticism of modern life.
Part biographical sketch, part pronouncement on existence and literature, the French best-selling novelist Michel Houellebecq's H. P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life was published in France in 1991 and is the first non-fiction text ever published by the author. In this encomium, France's most famous contemporary author praises his prewar American alter ego's style, which couldn't be much less like his own. With a foreword by a Lovecraft admirer, Stephen King, this eloquently translated edition is both an insightful introduction to Lovecraft's dark mythology and Houellebecq's deadpan prose.
Selected poems from the critically acclaimed author of Atomised and Submission Dual-language edition This selection of poems chosen from four collections shines a fresh light on Michel Houellebecq and emphasises the radical singularity of his work. Drawing on similar themes as his novels, Unreconciled is a journey into the depths of individual experience and universal passions. Divided into five parts, Unreconciled forms a narrative of love, hopelessness, catastrophe and, ultimately, redemption. In a world of supermarkets and public transport, Houellebecq manages to find traces of divine grace even as he exposes our inexorable decline into chaos. Told through forms and rhythms that are both ancient and new, with language steeped in the everyday, Houellebecq's vision of our era is one brimming with tensions that cannot - and will not - be reconciled.
Sein erster heftig umstrittener Roman, mit dem er bereits zu Weltruhm gelangte und nicht nur in Frankreich die Offentlichkeit polarisierte: Michel Houellebecq beschreibt die um Liebe reduzierte erotische Kampfzone der modernen Welt. Kaum je hat ein Autor in der franzsischen ffentlichkeit ein solches von leidenschaftlichen Diskussionen begleitetes Echo gefunden wie Michel Houellebecq mit seinem ersten Roman. Es wurde in Windeseile zum Kultbuch, rckhaltlos gepriesen und wtend geschmht. Heute gilt es vielen als Houellebecqs bestes Buch, sein Titel ist bereits zum Sprichwort geworden. Ein junger Informatiker, der fr eine Pariser Software- Firma arbeitet, ist der Held der in einem straff gespannten Bogen erzhlten Handlung. Seine betriebsame, aber kommunikationslose Umgebung versteht er meisterhaft zu sezieren. Dann unternimmt er eine Dienstreise in die Provinz, gemeinsam mit einem ebenso erotomanischen wie verklemmten Kollegen, einer Verkrperung all jener Eigenschaften, die er an seinen Mitmenschen verachtet. Am Weihnachtsabend, in einer Diskothek, drckt er ihm ein Messer in die Hand . . .
V romane Platforma zamaskirovannom pod sentimental'noe puteshestvie, okruzhayushchij mir dan v dvizhenii s Zapada na Vostok. V poiskah radosti ili radostej geroj dobiraetsya do Tajlanda, i tam emu, podobno Gogenu, suzhdeno obresti i utratit' svoj raj. No sposobny li nyneshnie evropejcy, rastlennye blagami civilizacii, oshchutit' pervozdannuyu radost' mira?.. K Zapadu ya ne ispytyvayu nenavisti, tol'ko ogromnoe prezrenie, - zamechaet geroj romana. - YA znayu odno: takie, kak my, est', my smerdim, ibo naskvoz' propitany ehgoizmom, mazohizmom i smert'yu. My sozdali sistemu, v kotoroj zhit' stalo nevozmozhno; i huzhe togo, my prodolzhaem rasprostranyat' ee na ostal'noj mir
Artist Jed Martin emerges from a ten-year hiatus with good news. It has nothing to do with his broken boiler, the approach of another lamentably awkward Christmas dinner with his father or the memory of his doomed love affair with the beautiful Olga. It is that, for his new exhibition, he has secured the involvement of none other than celebrated novelist Michel Houellebecq. The exhibition brings Jed new levels of global fame. But, his boiler is still broken, his ailing father flirts with oblivion and, worst of all, he is contacted by an inspector requiring his help in solving an unspeakable, atrocious and gruesome crime, involving none other than celebrated novelist Michel Houellebecq... Shortlisted for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award 2013.
Just thirty, with a well-paid job, no love life and a terrible attitude, the anti-hero of this grim, funny novel smokes four packs of cigarettes a day and writes weird animal stories in his spare time. A computer programmer by day, he is tolerably content, until he's packed off with a colleague - the sexually-frustrated Raphael Tisserand - to train provincial civil servants in the use of a new computer system Houellebecq's first novel was a smash hit in France, expressing the misanthropic voice of a generation. Like A Confederacy of Dunces, Houellebecq's bitter, sarcastic and exasperated narrator vociferously expresses his frustration and disgust with the world.
From the notorious, bestselling author of ATOMISED: a scholarly love letter on the hugely influential and reclusive literary horror writer H.P. Lovecraft 'Those who love life do not read. Nor do they go to the movies, actually. No matter what might be said, access to the artistic universe is more or less entirely the preserve of those who are a little fed up with the world.' In this prescient work, now with an introduction by Stephen King, Michel Houellebecq, the controversial and bestselling author of ATOMISED, focuses his considerable analytical skills on H.P. Lovecraft - one of the seminal horror writers of the early 20th century. Houellebecq's insights into the craft of writing illuminate both Lovecraft and Houellebecq's own work. The two are kindred spirits, sharing a uniquely dark worldview. But even as he outlines Lovecraft's rejection of this loathsome world, it is Houellebecq's adulation for the author that drives this work and makes it a love song, infusing the writing with an energy and passion that characterises Houellebecq's new novel. This is indispensable reading for anyone interested in Lovecraft, Houellebecq, or the past and future of horror.
Realising that his New Year is probably going to be a disaster, as usual, our narrator, on impulse, walks into a travel agency to book a week in the sun. Sensitive to his limited means and dislike of Muslim countries, the travel agent suggests an island full of 21st century hedonism, set in a bizarre lunar landscape - Lanzarote. On Lanzarote, one can meet some fascinating human specimens, notably Pam and Barbara - 'non-exclusive' German lesbians - who can give rise to some interesting combinations. Will they succeed in seducing Rudi, the police inspector from Luxembourg, currently living in exile in Brussels? Or will he join the 'Azraelian' sect, as they prepare for humanity to be regenerated by extra-terrestrials? As for our narrator, will he consider his week's holiday on the island a success?
Michel is a civil-servant at the Ministry of Culture. When his father is murdered, Michel takes a leave of absence to go on a package tour to Thailand. Infuriated by the shallow hypocrisy and mediocrity of his fellow travellers, only the awkward Valerie attracts his attention. Too bashful to pursue her, Michel prefers the uncomplicated pleasures of Thai massage parlours and sex with local women. Back in Paris, he calls Valerie and they plunge into a passionate affair, which strays into S&M, partner-swapping and sex in public. Michel quits his job, and tries to help Valerie and her boss, Jean-Yves, in their ailing travel business, by offering travel packages based on sex tourism in the third world. When their project comes to fruition and the three return to Thailand, Michel discovers that sex is neither the most consuming nor the most dangerous of human passions...
Half-brothers Michel and Bruno have a mother in common but little else. Michel is a molecular biologist, a thinker and idealist, a man with no erotic life to speak of and little in the way of human society. Bruno, by contrast, is a libertine, though more in theory than in practice, his endless lust is all too rarely reciprocated. Both are symptomatic members of our atomised society, where religion has given way to shallow 'new age' philosophies and love to meaningless sexual connections. Atomised tells the stories of the two brothers, but the real subject of the novel is the dismantling of contemporary society and its assumptions, its political incorrectness, and its caustic and penetrating asides on everything from anthropology to the problem pages of girls' magazines. A dissection of modern lives and loves. By turns funny, acid, infuriating, didactic, touching and visceral.
