SOURCE: Houellebecq, Michel, and Gerry Feehily. “The Man Who Fell to Earth.” New Statesman 131, no. 4599 (5 August 2002): 36-7.

In the following interview, Houellebecq discusses his literary celebrity, his controversial statements about Islam, and the inspirations behind Plateforme.

I first met Michel Houellebecq at a party held in Paris, in early September last year, to celebrate the French launch of his third novel, Plateforme. A wan, stooped figure wearing a large yellow anorak, baggy jeans and a pair of fluorescent Nike trainers, he wandered in the midst of the black-clad literati of Paris like a stranger to his own fame. Cigarette in hand, he retired to a corner of the room, attended to by a duo of skimpily dressed press agents, with helmet-like haircuts, who collected his empty glasses as he drained them of champagne and who hung on his every word. “I'm not in the right place,” he confessed...