David Sexton

The really shocking thing about Michel Houllebecq’s Soumission — he rather likes Islam

David Sexton delights in Soumission, the latest electrifying offering from France’s bad-boy novelist, but warns that an English translation will not be available until the autumn

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Michel Houellebecq’s sixth novel, imagining an Islamic government taking power in France in 2022, has been widely assumed to be an act of pure provocation. He is, after all, the author who faced legal trouble after having said in an interview in 2001: ‘La religion la plus con, c’est quand même l’islam.

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