Submission

The year is 2022, and Francois, a middle-aged lecturer at the Sorbonne, has grown bored with his life. He is a specialist in J.K. Huysmans, the nineteenth-century writer linked to the Decadent movement, but his own dissipation is far more modest. He takes up with his students, lives on frozen dinners, keeps returning to Huysmans, and spends his evenings watching online pornography.

An election is underway. Francois claims to care little for politics, yet the country's affairs are becoming hard to ignore. A newly formed Islamic party allies with the Socialists and wins power. Islamic law takes effect, women are required to wear veils, and polygamy is encouraged. Francois is offered a tempting academic promotion, but only if he converts to Islam.

The novel is the work of Michel Houellebecq, a French novelist. It mixes gloom with sharp comedy and turns its satire on the follies of history and the wider madness of people, all while following one disillusioned academic through a country that has changed around him.