Atomised

Proof copy. 8vo. Pp. [iv], 379, [1 (blank)]. Green printed wraps.

Enclosed in (an uncalled for) book jacket, in fine condition.

Houellebecq's second novel. Winner of the 1998 Prix Novembre as well as the 2002 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. Originally titled Les Particules Élémentaires (1999), it was published as The Elementary Particles by Knopf in the US. The contrasting though strangely complementary story of two half-brothers Michel and Bruno, ciphers for the author's 'cultivated' rebarbative personality. Basis for the 2006 German film of the same name, directed by Oskar Roehler, and starring Moritz Bleibtreu and Franka Potente, which premiered at the 56th Berlin International Film Festival.

Intentionally baiting Islamists, feminists and liberals of all hues and ideologies, his recent book Soumission (2015) – a political satire on an imagined forthcoming presidential tussle between the Front National and an Islamo-Leftist Socialist Party – had the misfortune to be published in Paris by Flammarion on the very day of the Charlie Hebdo massacre. "A novel which hunts big game while others settle for shooting rabbit." –Julian Barnes in the TLS "Books of the Year"