Michel Houellebecq (born
26 February 1958, on the French island of
Réunion) is a controversial, award-winning
French novelist resident in
Ireland.
Houellebecq worked as computer administrator in Paris before he became the so-called 'pop star of the single generation'. Gaining fame with the novel Extension du domaine de la lutte in 1994 (translated into English by Paul Hammond), he won the 1998 Prix Décembre with his novel Les Particules Elementaires (translated by Frank Wynne) and published as Atomised (Heinemann, UK)/The Elementary Particles (Knopf, US) which became an instant 'nihilistic classic' that the New York Times called a deeply repugnant read. The novel earned Houellebecq and with his translator Frank Wynne the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award in 2002.
His subsequent novel Plateforme (2001) earned him a wider reputation still, though extracts from the novel, together with an interview he accorded the magazine Lire led to charges being brought against him by France's Human Rights League, the Mecca-based World Islamic League and the mosques of Paris and Lyon in a trial reminiscent of Britain's Salman Rushdie affair.
A panel of three judges, delivering their verdict to a packed Paris courtroom, acquitted Houellebecq of the charges of provoking racial hatred.
Extension du domaine de la Lutte has twice been filmed - in France by Philippe Harel and in Danish by Jens Albinus.
The English translation of his novel Platform was adapted as a play by the theatre company Carnal Acts for the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in London in December 2004.
His works include: