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Nothing if not provocative

The musings of Michel Houellebecq
by
July 2022, no. 444

Interventions 2020 by Michel Houellebecq, translated by Andrew Brown

Polity, £20 pb, 280 pp

Nothing if not provocative

The musings of Michel Houellebecq
by
July 2022, no. 444
Michel Houellebecq in 2019 in San Sebastian, Spain (photograph by Jack Abuin/ZUMA/Alamy)
Michel Houellebecq in 2019 in San Sebastian, Spain (photograph by Jack Abuin/ZUMA/Alamy)

Michel Houellebecq has never been one to hide his light under a bushel. Since the publication of his second and best-known novel, Atomised, in 1998 (the same year some of the pieces included in Interventions 2020 were originally published in French), Houellebecq has established himself as the enfant terrible of French letters, primarily through his provocative and at times incendiary remarks. Indeed, there is a certain expectation that Houellebecq will live up to his reputation, something he notes in his reflections on paedophilia: ‘Through the wording of your questions, I feel I am subtly being asked to say something politically incorrect.’ Rarely does he disappoint.

David Jack reviews ‘Interventions 2020’ by Michel Houellebecq, translated by Andrew Brown

Interventions 2020

by Michel Houellebecq, translated by Andrew Brown

Polity, £20 pb, 280 pp

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