Annihilation

‘The most interesting novelist of our times’ – Evening Standard‘The most important novelist to have been publishing in all of Europe over the past three decades’ – The Sunday Times‘We have no one to match Houellebecq’ – The Daily TelegraphIt is 2027. France is in a state of economic decline and moral decay.As the country plunges into a closely-fought presidential campaign, the French state falls victim to a series of mysterious and unsettling cyberattacks. The sophisticated nature of the attacks leaves the best computer scientists at the DGSI – the French counter-terrorism agency – scrambling for answers.An advisor to the country’s Finance Minister, Paul Raison is close to the heart of government. His wife Prudence is a Treasury official, while his father Édouard, now retired, has spent his career working for the DGSI. When Édouard has a stroke, his children have an opportunity to repair their strained relationships, as they determine to free their father from the medical centre where he is wasting away.Michel Houellebecq’s Annihilation reveals new sides to his writing, adding compassion and tenderness to the emotions of rage and irony that have powered both him and his earlier works to international fame.Translated from the French by Shaun WhitesideAnnihilation was a #1 Livres Hebdo bestseller in France w/c 10/01/2022, and a #1 Spiegel bestseller in Germany w/c 24/01/2022

The most interesting novelist of our times, Michel Houellebecq’s new book proves he is one of the world’s greatest novelists . . . He writes superbly . . . In England . . . we have no one, male or female, to match Houellebecq, Surely the most important novelist to have been publishing not only in France but in all of Europe over the past three decades., It is hard to think of any writer in the English-speaking world equivalent to the cultural and political phenomenon that is the French novelist and provocateur Michel Houellebecq., Since the start of his literary career, Michel Houellebecq has been viewed in France as a prodigy whom his readers and critics both love hating and hate loving. As well as a bestselling novelist, he has become a social phenomenon: a rock star, a freak, a visionary genius, a political agitator, even, for some, a prophet., The most interesting novelist of our times, Michel Houellebecq’s new book proves he is one of the world’s greatest novelists . . . He writes superbly . . . In England . . . we have no one, male or female, to match Houellebecq, Surely the most important novelist to have been publishing not only in France but in all of Europe over the past three decades., It is hard to think of any writer in the English-speaking world equivalent to the cultural and political phenomenon that is the French novelist and provocateur Michel Houellebecq., Since the start of his literary career, Michel Houellebecq has been viewed in France as a prodigy whom his readers and critics both love hating and hate loving. As well as a bestselling novelist, he has become a social phenomenon: a rock star, a freak, a visionary genius, a political agitator, even, for some, a prophet.

Michel Houellebecq is a novelist, poet and essayist, as well as an occasional actor, filmmaker and singer. Acclaimed both in his native France and worldwide, his novels include Atomised, Platform, The Map and the Territory and Submission.