Unos meses de mi vida

Is Houellebecq a porn actor, a racist, anti-Muslim and an apologist for hatred? The two controversies that have shaken the author. Between 2022 and 2023, the writer became the centre of two controversies which, as he confesses, have taken a personal toll on him. On the one hand, the philosopher Michel Onfray had a conversation-interview with him in which Houellebecq gave his opinion on the Islamisation of Europe and the hypothetical violent reactions it would provoke: his words could be interpreted as linking Muslims with delinquency. A scandal ensued and the rector of the Grand Mosque in Paris threatened to sue. The writer here qualifies his controversial statements. The other controversy relates to his participation in a project by the Dutch art collective Kirac, which was advertised as a pornographic film starring Houellebecq. The author recounts this case, in which he felt deceived and manipulated, so he went to court to try to prevent the film from being broadcast. The eternal polemicist becomes a victim of the society of spectacle, in which he has always moved like a fish in water? In this book, Houellebecq explains the tension he has experienced and talks about the crisis of Western societies, fellatio, his relationship with pornography, Pablo Picasso, Baudelaire... Once again, he will dazzle or irritate, but will leave no one indifferent.