Michel Houellebecq
Michel Houellebecq (French: [miʃɛl wɛlbɛk]; born Michel Thomas; 26 February 1958) is a controversial and award-winning French author, filmmaker, and poet. Having written poetry and a biographical essay on the horror writer H. P. Lovecraft, he published his first novel, Whatever, in 1994. Atomised followed in 1998, and Platform in 2001. He published a book of poems "Le Sens de Combat" (published in English as "The Art of Struggle") in 1996. After a publicity tour for "Platform" led to his being taken to court for inciting racial hatred, he moved to Ireland to write for several years. He currently resides in France. In 2010 he published the Prix Goncourt-winning "L'Arte et la Territoire" ("The Art and the Territory published the same year in English").