Známý provokatér Michel Houellebecq napsal román o tom, jak se z Francie stane islámský stát. Příběh se odehrává roku 2022, kdy politické strany ve volbách raději podpoří fiktivního kandidáta strany zvané Muslimské bratrství, aby se prezidentkou nestala šéfka extrémně pravicové Národní fronty Marine Le Penová. Autor uvedl, že „urychluje historii“. Jeho kontroverzní románová fikce vzbudila nebývalou pozornost a kniha se v mnoha zemích stala absolutním bestsellerem.
It’s 2022. Francois is bored. He’s a middle-aged lecturer at the Sorbonne and an expert on J.K. Huysmans, the famous nineteenth-century Decadent author. But Francois’s own decadence is considerably smaller in scale. He sleeps with his students, eats microwave dinners, rereads Huysmans, watches YouPorn. Meanwhile, it’s election season. And although Francois feels “about as political as a bath towel,” things are getting pretty interesting. In an alliance with the Socialists, France’s new Islamic party sweeps to power. Islamic law comes into force. Women are veiled, polygamy is encouraged, and Francois is offered an irresistible academic advancement—on condition that he convert to Islam. Adam Gopnik in The New Yorker has said of Submission that Michael Houellebecq is “not merely a satirist but—more unusually—a sincere satirist, genuinely saddened by the absurdities of history and the madnesses of mankind.” Houellebecq’s new book may be satirical and melancholic, but it is also hilarious, a comic masterpiece by one of France’s great novelists.
