Michel Houellebecq

Vi er i den nære fremtid og den middelaldrende akademikeren François ser sitt liv sakte men sikkert virke mer og mer meningsløst. Han sexlyst er avtagende, foreldrene døde og hans livslange arbeid med ideene til den pessimistiske forfatteren Joris-Karl Huysmans leder ham ingensteds. I det sen-kapitalistiske samfunnet hvor konsum er den nye religionen, kjenner François seg sjelelig lunken og søker etter noe å fylle tilværelsen med. Og han ikke alene. Presidentvalget i 2022 nærmer seg og sosialisten Hollande taper første runde. Dermed står kampen mellom høyreekstreme Marine Le Pen og Det muslimske brorskap og deres kandidat Mohammed Ben Abbes. De andre partiene foretrekker den moderate Ben Abbes, fremfor LePen og dermed får Frankrike sin første muslimske president. Over natten endrer landet seg: Kvinner får ikke lenger gå med skjørt offentlig og utestenges fra arbeidslivet, hundretusener av menn får jobb og arbeidsledigheten faller dramatisk. Sorbonne universitetet finansieres av en saudisk prins, polygami innføres og for François får livet en ny retning.

The most celebrated and controversial French novelist of our time delivers a riveting masterpiece about art and money, love and friendship, and fathers and sons. Jed Martin is an artist. His first photographs feature Michelin road maps, and global success arrives with his series on professions: portraits of various personalities, including a writer named Houellebecq. Not long afterward, Jed helps a police inspector solve a heinous crime that leaves lasting marks on everyone involved. But after burying his father and growing old himself, Jed also discovers serenity, a deeply moving conclusion to a life of lovers, friends, and family, and filled with hopes, losses, and dreams.

'Everything separates us from one another, with the exception of one fundamental point: we're both utterly despicable individuals.' (Houellebecq to BHL)In 2008, two of the most celebrated of French intellectuals Michel Houellebecq and Bernard-Henri Lévy ('BHL') began a ferocious exchange of letters. Public Enemies is the result. In their inimitably witty, inimitably fascinating, inimitably confrontational correspondence, they lock horns on everything, including literature, sex, politics, family, fame and even - naturally - themselves. By turns caustic and touching, sincere and candid, Public Enemies reveals how these two immensely procovative writers came to be who they are. Never dull, always incendiary, this is one literary fight you can't ignore. The sparks fly from every page...

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.

Konstnären Jed Martin är en typisk Houellebecq-gestalt i yngre medelåldern: alienerad och tämligen ointresserad av sitt eget liv. Han når stora framgångar, först med en utställning där han har fotograferat Michelin-kartor och sedan med en serie porträtt av kända och okända människor i deras arbetsmiljö. Bland dem finns den uppburne författaren Michel Houllebecq, som också kommer att skriva en lång text till utställningskatalogen. Efter halva romanen kommer en oväntad vändning; ett brutalt mord. Poliskommissarien Jasselin, som leder undersökningen, får anledning att rannsaka sitt eget liv. En oväntat stillsam och melankolisk roman av den franska litteraturens enfant terrible.

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.

Når vår navnløse forteller innser at han står overfor nok en mislykket nyttårsfeiring, går han på impuls inn i et reisebyrå. På grunn av hans begrensede midler og generelle uvilje mot muslimske land, foreslår reisebyråagenten at han skal dra til øya Lanzarote, hvor det tjuende århundrets hedonisme utfolder seg i et bisart, månelignende landskap. På Lanzarote møter han noen fascinerende mennesker, deriblant de svært så inkluderende tyske lesbene Pam og Barbara. Vil de lykkes i å forføre Rudy, en politibetjent fra Luxembourg, som for tiden lever i eksil i Brussel? Eller vil Rudy i stedet bli med i den azraeliske sekten, som forbereder seg på at menneskeheten skal få besøk av utenomjordiske? Og vil ferien på øya bli en suksess?

The international publishing sensation is now available in the United States--two brilliant, controversial authors confront each other and their enemies in an unforgettable exchange of letters. In one corner, Bernard-Henri L vy, creator of the classic Barbarism with a Human Face, dismissed by the media as a wealthy, self-promoting, arrogant do-gooder. In the other, Michel Houellebecq, bestselling author of The Elementary Particles, widely derided as a sex-obsessed racist and misogynist. What began as a secret correspondence between bitter enemies evolved into a remarkable joint personal meditation by France's premier literary and political live wires. An instant international bestseller, Public Enemies has now been translated into English for all lovers of superb insights, scandalous opinions, and iconoclastic ideas. In wicked, wide-ranging, and freewheeling letters, the two self-described "whipping boys" debate whether they crave disgrace or secretly have an insane desire to please. L vy extols heroism in the face of tyranny; Houellebecq sees himself as one who would "fight little and badly." L vy says "life does not 'live'" unless he can write; Houellebecq bemoans work as leaving him in such "a state of nervous exhaustion that it takes several bottles of alcohol to get out." There are also touching and intimate exchanges on the existence of God and about their own families. Dazzling, delightful, and provocative, Public Enemies is a death match between literary lions, remarkable men who find common ground, confident that, in the end (as L vy puts it), "it is we who will come out on top."