Houellebecq king of French letters

“The vengeance of a pain in the arse,” headlinesLibération. On 8 November, France's most famous living author, Michel Houellebecq, won the Prix Goncourt. Over the last ten years, the controversial Houellebecq has been regularly shortlisted, and sidelined for the country's highest literary accolade. With the relatively muted, as well as alternately panned and praised, La carte et le territoire (The Map and the Territory), he has finally earned a mainstream consécration. But “is he going to calm down?” wonders the Parisian daily. In any case, “There is no point in hoping he wins a Nobel Prize. A man who peppers interviews with remarks like ’the dumbest religion has to be Islam’ is likely to remain unpopular with the Swedes.”