Michel Houellebecq

Michel Houellebecq is a French author of novels, poems and essays, and an occasional actor, filmmaker and singer. His first book was a study of the horror writer H. P. Lovecraft, and his novel Atomised in 1998 brought him international fame and controversy. An offhand remark about Islam during the tour for Platform led to a trial for inciting racial hatred, from which he was cleared. His novel The Map and the Territory won the Prix Goncourt in 2010, and Submission, published in 2015, stirred debate over its depiction of Islam.