1785150243 
Hardback Submission / Michel Houellebecq ; translated from the French by Lorin Stein.
Publication year: 2015
Format: Hardback
Publisher: London : William Heinemann,
Resource type: Physical
ISBN: 9781785150241 (hbk.) :
Notes:
In a near-future France, François, a middle-aged academic, is watching his life slowly dwindle to nothing. His sex drive is diminished, his parents are dead, and his lifelong obsession - the ideas and works of the nineteenth-century novelist and pessimist Joris-Karl Huysmans - has led him nowhere. In a late-capitalist society where consumerism has become the new religion, François is spiritually barren, but seeking to fill the vacuum of his existence with something.
Original title: Soumission. English
Description:
251 pages ; 24 cm
Available at:
Houellebecq captures, as only French literati seem able to, the sense of alienation and ennui of a middle aged French academic. Very Camus-like. The difference here is that, in near future France, Houellebecq imagines that a muslim president has achieved power, sharia law is enacted and public servants (including university staff0 must convert to Islam to keep their jobs. A fascinating scenario.
07/08/16