Michel Houellebecq

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Michel Houellebecq 2008

Michel Houellebecq [ miˈʃɛl wɛlˈbɛk ] (actually Michel Thomas ; born February 26, 1956 or 1958 in Saint-Pierre on Réunion ) is a French writer .

Life

Born on the French overseas island of Réunion, Houellebecq spent his early childhood up to 1961 mainly with his maternal grandparents in Algeria, which was then still French . His mother, Janine Ceccaldi, an anesthetist , and his father, René Thomas, a mountain guide , barely found time to devote themselves to their son. When his mother became pregnant by another man and his parents divorced, he came to the Paris region at the age of six to see his paternal grandmother, a communist , whose maiden name he later chose as his stage name. There is a profound misunderstanding and rift with his mother about the actual year of birth. Janine Ceccaldi says her son was born in 1956, while Houellebecq claims he corrected the date to 1958 after his mother post-dated the boy's age by two years. Nonetheless, she justified herself by stating that her son was a liar, impostor and useless.

The permanent move to France meant for Houellebecq the change to a boarding school in Meaux , where his classmates called him Einstein . After the baccalaureate he attended the Paris Lycée Chaptal the preparatory classes for technical colleges . In 1975 he was admitted to the Institut national agronomique Paris-Grignon . Here he also founded the short-lived literary magazine Karamazov , for which he wrote a few poems, and tried a film with the title Cristal de souffrance ("Suffering Crystal"). In 1978 he finished his studies as a qualified agricultural engineer . Instead of going to work, however, he successfully applied for a place in the film section of the École nationale supérieure Louis Lumière , which he left in 1981 without a degree.

While still a student, Houellebecq married his best friend's cousin in 1980, and his son Étienne was born a year later. He couldn't cope with this event. Houellebecq was unemployed, had marital problems and suffered from depression. As a result, he separated from his wife and went to psychiatric treatment.

In 1983 he got a job as a computer scientist in the consulting firm Unilog , but shortly afterwards he moved to the French Ministry of Agriculture . This time, around three years, he later processed in his novel Expansion of the combat zone . In addition to his professional activity, he wrote poetry again and for the first time also wrote reviews and book reviews. In this way he came into contact with various personalities in the Parisian literary scene and finally devoted himself entirely to writing . In 1991 his essay H. P. Lovecraft, Contre le monde, contre la vie, and the volume of poetry Rester vivant , followed in 1992 by the volume La Poursuite du bonheur . In the same year he met his second wife Marie-Pierre Gauthier.

Mainly because of the hostility of the French criticism after his second novel, Elementarteilchen (1998), Houellebecq and his wife withdrew to Ireland for a few years . In the meantime, however, he has separated from her, with whom he had owned a house near the Spanish city of Almería since 2003 . The divorce took place in 2010. Since 2013 he has lived permanently in Paris again and enjoys road cycling in his free time .

Houellebecq in November 2016 at the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul , Porto Alegre

In Guillaume Nicloux 's film The Abduction of Michel Houellebecq , Houellebecq plays himself. The film was shown for the first time in 2014 at the Berlinale .

As early as 2000 he gave a concert in Cologne , where he performed his own poems with instrumental accompaniment.

On January 7, 2015, the day his novel Soumission ( Submission ) was published in France , a terrorist attack on the editorial staff of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo took place, in which twelve people were killed. A caricature by Houellebecq was printed on the cover of the current issue with the words "In 2015 I will lose my teeth, in 2022 I will celebrate Ramadan". Bernard Maris , with whom Houellebecq was good friends, was among the victims . Houellebecq then broke off the advertising for his new novel and withdrew. On January 19, 2015, however, he appeared again in public at a reading at the Lit.Cologne in Cologne.

The secret wedding with the third wife - Qianyum Lysis Li - through the wedding guest Carla Bruni became known through two photos on Instagram . The native Chinese is 20 years younger than Houellebecq. The wedding probably took place on September 22, 2018.

Houellebecq heavily criticized an unauthorized biography published by Denis Demonpion in 2006. The 130 people who gave the author information about Houellebecq, he even accused of treason. He himself had wanted to influence the biography before publication and wanted to add footnotes to it, but was refused to do so. His own version of his biography differs in many decisive points from that in the book, Demonpion accuses him of “constructing his life like his novels”.

plant

Michel Houellebecq began in the 1980s with poems that were collected in 1991 and 1992 in the volumes Rester vivant and La Poursuite du bonheur ( Suche nach Glück , 2000). In his early 1991 essay H. P. Lovecraft, Contre le monde, contre la vie ( Against the World, Against Life , 2002), he dealt with the life and work of HP Lovecraft , the American cult author of fantastic literature.

He achieved national and international fame with his novels Extension du domaine de la lutte from 1994 ( expansion of the combat zone , 1999) and above all Les Particules élémentaires from 1998 ( elementary particles , 2001), both of which were filmed. The third novel, Plateforme from 2001 ( Platform ) , and the fourth, La Possibilité d'une île from 2005 ( The Possibility of an Island ) , were hits right from the start. They were awarded the Prix ​​Novembre and Prix ​​interallié literary prizes and were translated into several languages, including German, in the year of publication.

Like his friend Frédéric Beigbeder , Houellebecq paints a provocative image of a narcissistic western consumer society in his novels, mostly narrated in first person form . His protagonists suffer from their egocentricity , their unfulfilledness and their difficulties in experiencing human closeness and mutual devotion in a society that is inhibited from contact and emotions. In particular, sexual frustration appears as a leitmotif. One of Houellebecq's specialties, which is particularly evident in Platform , is to regularly insert half to one and a half page sex scenes into the plot. The processes (which are usually within the framework of the "normal") are presented partly objectively, partly sensitively. Another feature are the essayistic, time-critical or popular scientific considerations that are also often inserted en passant. Overall, Houellebecq's language is straightforward and precise; his narrative style is sober and casual.

Houellebecq's volumes of poetry Search for Happiness , The Meaning of Struggle and Rebirth , which were translated between 1996 and 1999, have remained largely unknown in the German-speaking world, as have his essays (some of which were republished in 2001 in Die Welt als Supermarkt ), which were published in the international press (e.g. Die Zeit ) and in well-known literary magazines (including L'Atelier du roman , Paris). In 2014, Houellebecq's book of poems, Gestalt des last bank in Germany, was published.

In 2015, Soumission ( submission ) was published, a political fiction about France in 2022, ruled by an Islamic president. Volker Weidermann calls Houellebecq the “most radical writer of our time” on the occasion of the appearance of Submission . The professional “scandal author” is “an iconic figure of Western culture”, who notes its madness in literary terms: “Loneliness and suffering from the unreasonable demands of freedom has been the theme of his books from the beginning. His style is relentless and compassionate at the same time. Total freedom is great only for the heroes of the story; the losers perish because of the possibilities in the world they cannot use. ”In 2018, an ARD film based on his novel Submission was released .

Beginning in 2019 appeared both in France and almost simultaneously in Germany, the Roman serotonins ( serotonin ) in which Houellebecq the demise of the 46-year-old, antidepressants acquiring agricultural engineer Florent-Claude describes Labrouste pulling into the hotel after breaking up with his Japanese wife and decides to stop doing his job and end his life. The themes of the novel are the contempt for the European Union , the economic misery in the French provinces and the resulting uprising of the rural population, sexuality, loneliness and alienation. Precisely because his novel Platform from 2001 outlined the attack in Bali that took place one year later and Submission in 2015 on the day of the Islamist terrorist attack on the editors of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo , the prophetic role of Houellebecq is repeatedly emphasized in the reviews of Serotonin Description of roadblocks in a dairy farmers' uprising is compared with the yellow vest protests .

Controversies and points of view

Due to numerous passages in Houellebecq's novels, he is regularly accused of being a racist, misogynist, reactionary or religious enemy (mostly Islamophobic). Also, Houellebecq, defamed as “nouveau réactionnaire”, did little to put negative ideas about himself into perspective; rather, he partially confirmed and reinforced the statements mentioned in interviews through provocative statements. However, he positions himself as neither “left” nor “right” and describes himself as an agnostic with regard to religion .

As for his literary companion Frédéric Beigbeder , the scandal is initially part of a strategy for him to assert himself on the literary market. However, by articulating the state of mind within a reality of life ruled by globalized capitalism, he takes on the position of a warning, but leaves the deeper causes for the widespread feeling of powerlessness in the indefinite. It is no coincidence that the texts of this “post-existentialist” (cf. expansion of the combat zone ) author , which always refer to the literary canon, not only suggest a provocateur like Louis-Ferdinand Céline , but also great moralists like François de La Rochefoucauld and Nicolas Chamfort (cf. The Possibility of an Island ).

Comments on figures in European history

In the historical-political area, too, Houellebecq has caused offense with provocative remarks. He said in an interview that Napoléon Bonaparte was worse than Adolf Hitler . He justified his alleged sympathies for Josef Stalin with the fact that he had killed many anarchists . He defended the head of state Philippe Pétain , ostracized as the supreme collaborator in the prevailing historiography of the Second World War , by saying that, unlike Charles de Gaulle, he did not flee in 1940, but faced the problems in the country.

Statements on Islam

In an interview that he gave to the French literary magazine Lire after the publication of Plateforme in 2001 , Houellebecq said among other things: "The stupidest religion is Islam." Several French Islamic associations (including those of the mosques in Paris and Lyon ), the French anti-racism association and the French League for Human Rights accused him of Islamophobia and anti-Islamic racism and sued him for “inciting racial hatred and religious violence”. However, the lawsuit was dismissed in October 2002 on the grounds of the fundamental right to criticize religions. Houellebecq revised his statement that Islam is the stupidest of all religions on January 20, 2015: "... that is not the case, he has meanwhile read the Koran." Houellebecq does not equate Islam with terror in the name of Islam and either said:

“An average interpretation of the Koran in no way leads to jihadism . To interpret the Koran in this way, one has to be very dishonest, very indecent "

- Michel Houellebecq

In his novel Submission he draws fictional conclusions from the “impossible situation” of Muslims in France, who are not represented in the existing party landscape. In the novel, a fictional Muslim party, with the support of the center-left factions, wins the 2022 presidential election and begins to reform the republic according to its ideas about Islam. Houellebecq himself does not see his novel as Islamophobic :

"... because my book is not Islamophobic. This should become clear even with inattentive reading. Muslims are by no means hurt by this. Muslims have said to me, 'That doesn't shock me, where does it?' Maybe there is an isolated individual voice that I regret. "

- Michel Houellebecq

Sympathy for Raelism

Houellebecq has openly shown himself to be a sympathizer of Raelism . He is friends with the founder of the movement, Claude Vorilhon, and in 2003 attended a Raelian conference in Switzerland . His novel The Possibility of an Island and the story of Lanzarote are partly inspired by Raelian teachings, but at the same time show a critical distance. The news spread by the Raelians in 2002 that the first cloned baby had been created was commented on with interest by him. The possibility of cloning people plays a central role in the structure of the possibility , as the main plot about the protagonist Daniel No. 1 is introduced by his later clones Daniel No. 24 and Daniel No. 25, accompanied by commentary and concluded with an epilogue .

Corona pandemic and criticism of technology

Houellebecq is pessimistic about the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic : "It will be the same world, only a little worse." He sees the crisis as proof that not everyone's life has the same value. For him, the pandemic is a great excuse for the momentous trend of reducing human contact through technology. For example, “for a number of years [...] all technological developments, whether small (video on demand, contactless payment) or large (teleworking, internet shopping, social networks) have resulted in a reduction in material and especially human contacts (as the main goal?) . "

Works

Novels

Further

  • Search for happiness. Poems . DuMont, 2000, ISBN 3-7701-5357-X (French: La poursuite du bonheur . 1992. Translated by Hinrich Schmidt-Henkel ).
  • Staying alive ( Rester vivant , 1997), Die Schöpferische Absurdität (In: Interventions, 1998 / The world as a supermarket, 1999) and Pariser Beton (In: Literaturen . 6, 2005, p. 9), DuMont, 2006, ISBN 3- 8321-7970-4 .
  • The world as a supermarket . DuMont, 1999, ISBN 3-7701-4972-6 (French: Interventions, recueil d'essais . 1998. Original publisher: Flammarion).
  • Rebirth. Poems, French-German . DuMont, 2001, ISBN 3-7701-5359-6 (French: Renaissance . 1999. Translated by Hinrich Schmidt-Henkel, original publisher: Flammarion).
  • Le sens du combat. The meaning of the fight. Poems, French-German . DuMont, 2001, ISBN 3-7701-5358-8 .
  • Against the world, against life . DuMont, 2002, ISBN 3-8321-5531-7 (French: Contre le monde, contre la vie .).
  • Search for happiness . Rowohlt, 2003, ISBN 3-499-23172-7 (French: La poursuite du bonheur . Translated by Hinrich Schmidt-Henkel, paperback edition).
  • Lanzarote . Rowohlt, 2004, ISBN 3-499-23644-3 (original publisher: Flammarion).
  • Michel Houellebecq, Stephen King (Eds.), HP Lovecraft : Against the World, Against Life (2005)
  • Michel Houellebecq, Bernard-Henri Lévy : Enemies of the people: An exchange of blows . DuMont, 2009, ISBN 978-3-8321-9518-2 (French: Ennemis publics . 2008.).
  • I have a dream . DuMont Verlag, Cologne 2010, ISBN 978-3-8321-9592-2 (French: Interventions 2. 2009. Translated by Hella Faust).
  • Configuration du dernier rivage . Flammarion, 2013, ISBN 978-2-08-130316-4 (volume of poetry).
    • Shape of the last bank. Poems . DuMont Verlag, Cologne 2014, ISBN 978-3-8321-9741-4 (French: Configuration du dernier rivage . 2013. Translated by Stephan Kleiner, Hinrich Schmidt-Henkel).
  • 1991-2000 . Flammarion, Paris 2016, ISBN 978-2-08-137814-8 .
  • Michel Houellebecq: Collected Poems . DuMont Verlag, Cologne 2016, ISBN 978-3-8321-6355-6 .
  • Houellebecq. 2001-2010 . Éditions Flammarion, Paris 2017, ISBN 978-2-08-138609-9 .
  • En présence de Schopenhauer . Éditions L'Herne, Paris 2017, ISBN 978-2-85197-832-5 .
  • Cahiers de L'Herne. Houellebecq . Éditions de L'Herne, Paris 2017, ISBN 978-2-85197-187-6
    • German excerpt: Mourir 1, Mourir 2 , transl. Bernd Wilczek. In blue, white, red. France tells. Ed. Olga Mannheimer. dtv, Munich 2017, ISBN 9783423261524 , pp. 23–42, 49–51.
  • Michel Houellebecq, David Engels , Gerd Morgenthaler, Max Otte : Michel Houellebecq, Oswald Spengler and the fall of the West. Speeches on the occasion of the awarding of the Oswald Spengler Prize to Michel Houellebecq. Brussels, October 19, 2018 , Manuscriptum, Lüdinghausen and Berlin, 2019, ISBN 978-3944872919 . (Houellebecq's speech in French and German translation)

Filmography (selection)

Awards

literature

Monographs

  • Fernando Arrabal : ¡Houellebecq! Le Cherche-Midi 2005, ISBN 84-933033-0-5 (French).
  • Olivier Bardolle: La Littérature à vif: Le cas Houellebecq. L'Esprit des péninsules 2004, ISBN 2-84636-055-3 (French).
  • Aurélien Bellanger: Houellebecq, écrivain romantique. Léo Scheer, Clamecy 2010, ISBN 978-2-7561-0256-6 (French).
  • Murielle Lucie Clément: Houellebecq, sperme et sang. L'Harmattan, Paris 2003, ISBN 2-7475-3999-7 (French).
  • Denis Demonpion: Houellebecq, non autorisé: Enquête sur un phénomène. Maren Sell, Paris 2005, ISBN 2-35004-022-4 (French) .; German edition: Michel Houellebecq: The unauthorized biography. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-89602-688-7 .
  • Julia Encke : Who is Michel Houellebecq? Portrait of a provocateur , Rowohlt Berlin, Berlin 2018
  • Thomas Hübener: Maladia for millions. A study on Michel Houellebecq's "Expansion of the combat zone". Wehrhahn, Hannover 2007, ISBN 978-3-86525-064-3 .
  • Bernard Maris: Houellebecq économiste. Flammarion, Paris 2014, ISBN 978-2-08-129607-7 .
    • German by Bernd Wilczek: Michel Houellebecq, economist. A poetics at the end of capitalism. DuMont Buchverlag, Cologne 2015, ISBN 978-3-8321-9804-6 .
  • Éric Naulleau: Au secours, Houellebecq revient! Chiflet, Paris 2005, ISBN 2-7556-0039-X (French).
  • Dominique Noguez: Houellebecq, en fait. Fayard 2003, ISBN 2-213-61561-6 (French).
  • Jean-François Patricola: Michel Houellebecq ou la provocation permanente. Écriture, Paris 2005, ISBN 2-909240-66-5 (French).
  • Rita Schober: On the test bench: Zola - Houellebecq - Klemperer. Frey, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-925867-72-4 .
  • Jörn Steigerwald, Agnieszka Komorowska: Michel Houellebecq: Questions du réalisme d'aujourd'hui. Lendemains 142/143 (2011)
  • Thomas Steinfeld (Ed.): The Houellebecq phenomenon. DuMont, Cologne 2001, ISBN 3-7701-5623-4 .
  • Sabine van Wesemael (Ed.): Michel Houellebecq. Rodopi, Amsterdam 2004, ISBN 90-420-1743-0 (French).
  • Sabine van Wesemael: Houellebecq: le plaisir du texte. L'Harmattan, Paris 2005, ISBN 2-7475-8079-2 (French).

Articles and reviews

  • Jack I. Abecassis: The Eclipse of Desire: L'Affaire Houellebecq. In: MLN 115 (4), 2000, pp. 801-826 (English).
  • Thomas Assheuer: Sex and Capitalism. Michel Houellebecq dreams of tragic life in obscene society , review of expansion of the combat zone. In: THE TIME. 16, 1999.
  • Thomas Borgstedt: Pop men. Provocation and pose with Christian Kracht and Michel Houellebecq. In: masculinity as a masquerade. Cultural presentations from the Middle Ages to the present. Edited by Claudia Benthien and Inge Stephan. Böhlau, Cologne 2003, pp. 221–247.
  • Jean-François Chassay: Apocalypse scientiste et fin de l'humanité: Les particules élémentaires de Michel Houellebecq ( MS Word ; 62 kB). In: Pascal Brissette et al. (Ed.): Écritures hors-foyer: comment penser la littérature actuelle? Montréal 2002 (171-188) (English).
  • Manuel Chemineau: «Michel Houellebecq. Vive le trash! " in Wiener Zeitung / Extra, April 2, 1999.
  • Laurence Dahan-Gaida: La fin de l'histoire (naturelle): “Les particules élémentaires” by Michel Houellebecq (PDF; 592 kB). In: Tangence. 73, automne 2003, pp. 93-114. (French).
  • Betül Dilmac: The mixing of literary and scientific discourse with Michel Houellebecq. In: Thomas Klinkert, Monika Neuhofer (Ed.): Theory - Epistemology - Comparative Case Studies. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2008, pp. 301–320.
  • Kim Doré: Doléances d'un surhomme ou La question de l'évolution dans Les particules élémentaires de Michel Houellebecq (PDF; 578 kB). In: Tangence. 70, automne 2002, pp. 67-83. (French).
  • Simon Dudek: Michel Houellebecq - The scandal as a violation of Political Correctness. In: Andrea Bartl, Martin Kraus: Scandal authors. Königshausen & Neumann, pp. 321–336.
  • Sabine Heimgärtner: The writer Michel Houellebecq provokes the Muslims and dupes the media. In: Der Tagesspiegel, September 12, 2001.
  • XUAN Jing: Surrender / Renewal: On the dialectic of recognition in Michel Houellebecq's Soumission. In: PhiN. 73, 2015, pp. 119-131.
  • Kian-Harald Karimi: “Nous n'étions que des machines conscientes” - On the inevitability of the utopian in Michel Houellebecq's novels. In: Kurt Hahn, Matthias Hausmann (ed.): Visions of the Urban: (Anti-) Utopian city designs in French word and image art. Winter, Heidelberg 2012, pp. 205-229.
  • Kian-Harald Karimi: "L'histoire, le chaos humain et le chaos métaphysique" - A story beyond history in texts by Maurice Dantec, Michel Houellebecq and Frédéric Beigbeder. In: Romance Journal for the History of Literature / Cahiers d'Histoire des Littératures Romanes. Issue 3/4, 2009, pp. 415-434.
  • Kian-Harald Karimi: From outer to inner Mongolia - mediality and domestication of the physical with Mario Sá Carneiro, Bioy Casares and Michel Houellebecq. In: C. Bauer-Funke, G. Febel (Ed.): The automated body. Literary visions of the artificial man from the Middle Ages to the 21st century. Weidler, Berlin 2005, pp. 259-283.
  • Stephan Leopold: "Le specter de la régénération et les ambiguïtés de lʼutopie - Michel Houellebecq, lecteur du dernier Zola". In: Aurélie Barjonet u. Jean-Sébastien Macke (ed.), Lire Zola au XXIe siècle. Colloque de Cerisy 2016 , Paris: Garnier 2018, pp. 167-183.
  • Stephan Leopold: "Michel Houellebecq et la question de l'autre: Plateforme" - a journey of conquest in times of neo-colonialism. In: PhiN. 31 (2005), pp. 14-28.
  • Roman Luckscheiter: Letting yourself go between two books. He's done it again: Michel Houellebecq calls Islam the “most stupid religion ever”. In: Frankfurter Rundschau. September 5, 2001.
  • Patrick Mayoux: Speaking of “Jacques Prévert est un con” (French).
  • Christian Monnin: Extinction du domaine de la lutte - L'œuvre romanesque de Michel Houellebecq. (French; PDF; 95 kB)
  • Christian Monnin: Le roman comme accélérateur de particules: Autour de Houellebecq. (French; MS Word ; 41 kB)
  • Annika Nickenig: "Le triomphe de la végétation est total". Michel Houellebecq's La carte et le territoire or The fall of mankind as an idyll. In: Jan Gerstner / Christian Riedel (ed.): Idylls in contemporary literature and media. Aisthesis, Bielefeld 2018, ISBN 978-3-8498-1279-9 .
  • Lothar Peter: "Submission" by Michel Houellebecq - a socially critical novel ?. In: Z. Journal for Marxist Renewal . 26 (2015). Pp. 42-51
  • Martin Robitaille: Houellebecq, ou l'extension d'un monde étrange (PDF; 186 kB). In: Tangence. 76/2004, pp. 87-103 (French).
  • Jörn Steigerwald: (Post-) moralistic storytelling. Michel Houellebecq's “Particules élémentaires”. In: Lendemains. 138/139, 2010, pp. 191-208.
  • Jonas Vesterberg: The Sexual Political Economy of Postmodernity: An Introduction to Critical Theory in the Works of Michel Houellebecq (PDF; 225 kB). Chapel Hill (NC) 2003 (English).

Interviews with Michel Houellebecq

  • “Good prospects” in the gene laboratory. About swinger clubs and the joys of artificial reproduction. An interview with D. Fuhrig. In: Frankfurter Rundschau. October 20, 1999. Also published in literaturkritik.de
  • One must abolish death. A conversation with S. Steines. In: The time. September 21, 2000.
  • Jean-Daniel Beauvallet: Extension du domaine de la flûte. ( Memento of June 24, 2002 in the Internet Archive ) In: Les Inrockuptibles. April 10, 2000 (French).
  • “Quantum mechanics, the principle of complementarity; the death instinct, love and poetry ”. Sigrid Weigel and Michel Houllebecq in conversation. In: Language in the Technical Age. Edition 157/2001.
  • "Love is not kitsch". Michel Houellebecq finds love in his new novel Platform . The scandal writer about cloned people, fundamentalism and dangerous feelings. A conversation with Axel Brüggemann. In: The world. February 10, 2002.
  • Juremir Machado da Silva: Michel Houellebecq: Le roman comme art de la provocation. In: L'acte d'écrire. 81/2003 (3) (French).
  • “It was foreseeable that my film would be panned.” Michel Houellebecq on his film The possibilities of an island , the charm of the screen, human photosynthesis and the filming of elementary particles . Interview by Ralf Krämer in Planet Interview , June 24, 2009.
  • Susannah Hunnewell: Michel Houellebecq, The Art of Fiction No. 206. In: The Paris Review . 194, fall 2010.
  • Interview by André Müller (2002) In: “You really are a damned crow!” Last conversations and encounters. LangenMüller, Munich 2011, pp. 319–338.
  • Interview by Iris Radisch : Death is unbearable. In: The time. 04/2015, January 23, 2015.

Article from Houellebecq online

Audio book

Movie

  • 2014: The kidnapping of Michel Houellebecq. Director: Guillaume Nicloux (broadcast on August 27, 2014 by arte )
  • 2019: Thalasso. Director: Guillaume Nicloux

Web links

Commons : Michel Houellebecq  - album with pictures, videos and audio files
Wikiquote: Michel Houellebecq  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ according to the birth certificate
  2. ↑ Denis Demonpion: Houellebecq non autorisados enquête, phénomène sur un. Maren Sell, 2005. See also liberation.fr
  3. ↑ Denis Demonpion: Houellebecq non autorisé: enquête sur un phénomène. Sell, Paris 2005.
  4. ↑ La mère de Michel Houellebecq règle ses comptes avec son fils . liberation.fr. April 29, 2008 (French)
  5. ↑ La possibilité d'une Elle . Interview with Janine Lucie Ceccaldi. Published on sebtheplayer.com. Accessed September 27, 2016 (French)
  6. ↑ “… il aurait été très généreux avec son ex-femme, Marie-Pierre Gauthier.” In: Michel Houellebecq, dernière rock star française.
  7. ↑ Michel Houellebecq has apparently married - and Carla Bruni shares it , spiegel.de, September 23, 2018, accessed on September 24, 2018
  8. ↑ zeit.de film "The Kidnapping of Michel Houellebecq" Newly tied up the global package . zeit.de. 9 February 2014.
  9. ↑ spiegel.de Terrorist attack on satirical magazine Why "Charlie Hebdo"? . spiegel.de. 7 January 2015.
  10. ↑ Houellebecq stops advertising tour for new book . faz.net. 8 January 2015.
  11. ↑ Michel Houellebecq has apparently married - and Carla Bruni shares it , spiegel.de, September 23, 2018, accessed on September 24, 2018
  12. ^ Brigitte Preissler: Literature scandal: Michel Houellebecq fudged his biography . In: THE WORLD . September 14, 2006 ( welt.de [accessed August 24, 2020]).
  13. ↑ Michel Houellebecq's vision: When France submits to Islam. In: Spiegel online . January 6, 2015 (accessed January 7, 2015)
  14. ↑ Scandal author Michel Houellebecq lets Muslims rule. In: Der Tagesspiegel . January 6, 2015 (accessed January 7, 2015)
  15. ↑ Volker Weidermann: The most radical writer of our time. faz.net, January 8, 2015, accessed January 16, 2015.
  16. ↑ Wolfgang Höbel: "Submission" as an ARD film. The cynical life is a chanson , spiegel.de, article from June 6, 2018.
  17. ↑ Felix Müller: How good is Michel Houellebecq's new novel "Serotonin"? January 11, 2019, accessed on February 19, 2019 (German).
  18. ↑ Michel Houellebecq: "Serotonin" - The depression of the old, white man. Retrieved on February 19, 2019 (German).
  19. ↑ Alex Rühle: The prophet of the downfall . In: sueddeutsche.de . January 4, 2019, ISSN  0174-4917 ( sueddeutsche.de [accessed February 19, 2019]).
  20. ^ PR coup of the Houellebecq publishing house - The staged prophet. Retrieved on February 19, 2019 (German).
  21. ↑ The prophet of the "yellow vests". January 1, 2019, accessed February 19, 2019 .
  22. ↑ welt.de
  23. ↑ Jürgen Ritte on Deutschlandfunk : a tremendous rustling of leaves [1] Dirk Fuhrig suspects in Deutschlandfunk Kultur that Houellebecq was also concerned with his "provocateur's reputation for driving up the circulation". [2]
  24. ↑ According to Thomas Hanke in the Handelsblatt , Houellebecq only supplies "conspiracy theories" and "dark forces". For Stefan Brändle in the Frankfurter Rundschau , Houellebecq only deals with market liberalization "in general".
  25. ↑ Cf. Till R. Kuhnle: Morals - an ethical thorn in the age of globalization? The French contemporary novel between defeatism and scandal. In: Susanne Krepold, Christian Krepold (ed.): Schön und gut? Studies on ethics and aesthetics in literature. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2008, pp. 97–130.
  26. ↑ Michel Houellebecq: "Sex is certainly a good reason not to kill yourself"
  27. ↑ Le fabuleux destin de Michel H. ( Memento of April 20, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Article by François Busnel in L'Express Livres , August 30, 2001.
  28. ↑ Interview in Les Inrockuptibles. August 1998.
  29. ↑ Michel Houellebecq. September 1, 2001, accessed January 21, 2019 (French).
  30. ↑ In the original: "Et la religion la plus con, c'est quand même l'islam." ( Memento from September 27, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  31. ↑ Süddeutsche Zeitung. January 21, 2015, p. 3.
  32. ↑ a b Michel Houellebecq: Michel Houellebecq: Freedom must provoke. Interview (published January 14, 2015)
  33. ↑ Sylvain Bourmeau: An Islamic party is actually mandatory. Interview with Houellebecq, welt.de, January 3, 2015, accessed on January 4, 2015.
  34. ^ Houellebecq, le nouvel alibi de Raël. ( Memento of December 2, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Article in L'illustré , December 2003.
  35. ↑ Controversial author Michel Houellebecq does not believe in a better world after the Corona crisis. Retrieved on August 24, 2020 (German).
  36. ↑ Slightly abbreviated text of the acceptance speech: Europe is facing suicide . nzz.ch. Published on September 27, 2016.
  37. ↑ Michel Houellebecq received the Austrian Decoration of Honor in Paris on September 30, 2017, accessed on September 5, 2019.
  38. ↑ Axel Rüth: Houellebecq & Spengler: Wombs as hope for the West. In: welt.de . October 21, 2018, accessed March 25, 2019 .
  39. ↑ Acceptance speech: How not to become extinct . welt.de. Published on October 20, 2018.
  40. ↑ Order of Knights for Michel Houellebecq , deutschlandfunkkultur.de, published and accessed on April 19, 2019.
  41. ↑ orf.at: State Prize for European Literature to Houellebecq . Article dated May 8, 2019, accessed May 8, 2019.
personal data
SURNAME Houellebecq, Michel
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Thomas, Michel (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French author
DATE OF BIRTH February 26, 1956 or February 26, 1958
PLACE OF BIRTH Saint-Pierre on Réunion