Arts Section Stein, Lorin (23 October 2000). © 2020 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. From Michel Houellebecq to Simone de Beauvoir, novelist Tommy Wieringa chooses stories of men who have tried to reach beyond what is possible All rights reserved. Houellebecq’s reputation as a visionary rests on his depiction of what we have instead of the old bourgeois social order.If the winning book is a translation, the prize is divided between the writer and the translator, with the writer receiving €75,000 and the translator €25,000.Houellebecq was officially born in 1956, but gave out his birth year to be 1958, before it was revealed by a journalist in the biography In his own 2005 autobiographical account, "Mourir", published on his – now defunct – personal website following the publication of the aforementioned biography, the author explained that he was "more likely" born in 1958, and that his mother, by her own admission, managed to have the date changed on his birth certificate to allow him to enter school at age 4, as she was convinced that he was intellectually gifted. Michel Houellebecq est un romancier et poète français né le 26 février 1956 à Saint-Pierre sur l’île de la Réunion. The hoary concept of the male genius is under fire in a rollicking satire of sex, literature and desperation More likely in 1958. Three unlikely heroes take to the road in this broad but pleasing picturesque (think Sideways sans pathos), featuring improbable sex and a kooky cameo from Michel Houellebecq

Fortunately, it is doomed.

Two of them were recorded with composer A recurrent theme in Houellebecq's novels is the intrusion of Although Houellebecq's work is often credited with building on In January 2019, Houellebecq was made a Chevalier of the In 2016 he participated, together with Iggy Pop and several others, in Erik Lieshout's documentary In 2014, Houellebecq drew up a "project for a new constitution" based on Houellebecq has been accused of putting on polemical stunts for the mediaIslam is a dangerous religion, and has been from the moment it appeared. It is that they talk about things having nothing to do with my books—my mother or my tax exile—and that they caricature me so that I’ve become a symbol of so many unpleasant things—cynicism, nihilism, misogyny. His new book imagines a France ruled by Islamists and he has been under 24-hour police protection since the Charlie Hebdo attack. Debut novelist Heinz Helle explains why, and recommends some of the best of the worst Enfant terrible awarded Légion d’honneur as ‘scathing, visionary’ novel Serotonin is released After two or three novels, a writer can’t expect to be read. Institutions fall apart. – books podcastFrance and Britain: the differences in their struggle with extremismSubmission by Michel Houellebecq review – satire that’s more subtle than it seemsMichel Houellebecq: ‘Am I Islamophobic? He told a court in Paris that his words had been twisted, saying: "I have never displayed the least contempt for Muslims [but] I have as much contempt as ever for Islam".The fundamental monotheistic texts preach neither peace nor love nor tolerance. People have stopped reading my books because they’ve already got their idea about me. Laughter is in short supply in this collection from France’s great satirist and contrarian The Outsider is Everyman. "What to Read in October." From the start, they were texts of hatred.Literary critics have labeled Michel Houellebecq's novels "vulgar", "pamphlet literature" and "pornography"; he has been accused of obscenity, racism, misogyny and Islamophobia.Houellebecq may despair of love in a free market, but he takes love more seriously, as an artistic problem and a fact about the world, than most polite novelists would dare to do; when he brings his sweeping indignation to bear on one memory, one moment when things seemed about to turn out all right for his characters, and didn’t, his compassion can blow you away.Ten years later, Houllebecq responded to critical reviews: