French Novelist Michel Houellebecq Cancels Publicity Tour Due to Terrorist Threats

Posted on January 9, 2015

French author Michel Houellebecq has stopped promoting his new novel Soumission Submission), after the horrifying terrorist attacks at the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris which left twelve dead.

Houellebecq's new novel imagines France seven years in the future. In this future France is now governed by a radical Muslim president. In his novel, all of Europe has submitted to Islam. One day women are wearing Western fashions, and the next day they are all in full burkas. The novel is a satire of both extreme religion and extreme political parties of all stripes. Houellebecq was set to do a major round of television publicity and to be on the cover of Charlie Hebdo.

Steven Poole's review of the book notes that the media descriptions of the book are too one-note, that the book is much more than a satire of extreme Islam. He writes, "But Soumission is, arguably, not primarily about politics at all. The real target of Houellebecq's satire – as in his previous novels -- is the predictably manipulable venality and lustfulness of the modern metropolitan man, intellectual or otherwise."

One of the twelve people who were murdered at the Charlie Hebdo offices by Islamic extremists was economist Bernard Maris, who was one of Houellebecq's close friends. The author is devastated by the attacks and has cancelled all his publicity engagements, according to his agent who says the author has left for a rural retreat. His publisher had its offices evacuated yesterday after the attacks, and was placed under police guard.

Police are concerned that Houellebecq and his publisher are on some kind of terrorist hit list, and speculation says the author was moved to a secure location with a protective detail. The novel is set to be released in English in September, 2015. In light of the terrorist attacks, the book is already a bestseller in France.