Soumission. Michel Houellebecq and the conversion to literature

Abstract

“France is not Michel Houellebecq, it is not intolerance, hatred and fear”, said Prime Minister Valls during the first interview after the terror attack in Paris. In those days – as recalled by our statuses and images of the profiles of our social networks – we were all Charlie but nobody or very few outside France were aware of what Charlie Hebdo was, suddenly assumed as a universal symbol of freedom of expression. And very few people had probably read Houellebecq, even though they had denied it. But after Paris attacks, the number of reviewers and censurers of Houellebecq's suddenly multiplied, questioning the role of literature as an instrument of contemporary interpretation.