Submission (novel)

The novel's narrator is François, a middle-aged literature professor at Paris 3 and specialist in Huysmans. In 2022 François feels he is at the end of his sentimental and sexual life – composed largely of year-long liaisons with his students. It has been years since he did any valuable university work. France is in the grip of political crisis – in order to stave off a National Front victory, the Socialists ally with the newly formed Muslim Brotherhood Party, with additional support from the Union for a Popular Movement, formerly the main right-wing party. They propose the charming Islamic candidate Mohammed Ben-Abbes for the presidency against the National Front leader Marine Le Pen. In despair at the emerging political situation, and the inevitability of antisemitism becoming a major force in French politics, the parents of François's young and attractive Jewish girlfriend, Myriam, emigrate to Israel, taking her along with them. His mother and father die. He fears that he is heading towards suicide, and takes refuge at an abbey situated in the town of Ligugé; it is also where his literary hero, Huysmans, became a lay member. Ben-Abbes wins the election, and becomes President of France. He pacifies the country and enacts sweeping changes to French laws, privatizing the Sorbonne, thereby making François redundant with full pension as only Muslims are now allowed to teach there. He also ends gender equality, allowing polygamy. Several of François's intellectually-inferior colleagues, having converted to Islam, get good jobs and make arranged marriages with attractive young wives. The new president campaigns to enlarge the European Union to include North Africa, the Muslim Levant and Turkey, with the aim of making it a new Roman Empire with the now-Islamicized France at its lead. In this new, different society, with the support of the powerful politician Robert Rediger, the novel ends with François poised to convert to Islam and the prospect of a second, better life, with a prestigious job, and wives chosen for him. == Publication ==

On 5 January 2015, French president François Hollande announced in an interview for France Inter radio that he "would read the book, because it's sparking a debate." The author appeared in a caricature on the front page of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo on 7 January 2015, the day when the offices of the newspaper were attacked by masked gunmen who killed eight Charlie Hebdo employees. The title on the cover was: "Les prédictions du mage Houellebecq : en 2015, je perds mes dents, en 2022, je fais ramadan." (English: "The predictions of the sorcerer Houellebecq: In 2015, I lose my teeth. In 2022, I observe Ramadan.") On the day of the publishing of the book and hours before the attack on Charlie Hebdo, Houellebecq said in an interview for France Inter radio: The Italian language translation (Sottomissione) by Vincenzo Vega was published on 15 January 2015 by Bompiani. The German translation (Unterwerfung) by Norma Cassau and Bernd Wilczek was published on 16 January 2015 by DuMont Buchverlag. Lorin Stein translated the book into English. The Spanish language translation (Sumisión) by Joan Riambau was published 29 April 2015 by Anagrama. == Reception ==

The book was an instant bestseller. More than 120,000 books were sold in the weeks following publication. One month later, 345,000 copies had been sold in France alone, and the book was a best seller in Italy and Germany. Several critics, including Bruno de Cessole of Valeurs actuelles and Jérôme Dupuis of ''L'Express'', compared the novel to Jean Raspail's 1973 novel The Camp of the Saints, a novel about the political impotence of Europe during a massive wave of immigration from India. Grégoire Leménager of ''L'Obs downplayed the similarities to The Camp of the Saints, as Submission'' does not deal with ethnicity, and instead placed Houellebecq's novel within a trend of recent French novels about immigration and Islam, together with La Mémoire de Clara by Patrick Besson, Dawa by Julien Suaudeau and Les Événements by Jean Rolin, speculating that the concept of the "Great Replacement" ("Grand Remplacement"), as formulated by Renaud Camus, was becoming fashionable as a literary device. The book has also been seen as inspired by Bat Ye'or's Eurabia thesis. Marine Le Pen commented in an interview with France Info Radio that the novel is "a fiction that could one day become reality." French novelist Emmanuel Carrère compared Submission to George Orwell's 1984. In 2020 Ivan Strenski, professor of religious studies at the University of California in Riverside, published in the academic journal Terrorism and Political Violence an extensive comparison of Houellebecq's novel with the non-fiction book and bestseller The Strange Death of Europe by Douglas Murray. Both authors would strongly emphasize the risk of a near end of traditional European culture. Jean Birnbaum in Le Monde des Livres judges Houellebecq as «neither a fringy or someone we can ignore» and, «from this statement, the fact that his story has a poor literary style» doesn't mean that the book has to be thrown in a bin. He says further «Houellebecq wants to mean something» (...) «which tells very much (...) about this terrifying epoch, when we are forced to choose between Islamic killers and fear of Islam.» French philosopher, Gaspar Koenig argues that Islam is a secondary topic in the story, the first topic being Joris-Karl Huysmans. However, he stresses the writer's talent for foresight, making a common point between Mohammed Ben Abbas's election in the book and Emmanuel Macron's election in 2017: the two being young, liberal, leading a new political party, and winning the election against National Rally thanks to the decisive support of François Bayrou. Koenig concludes with a vision of a post-national era, where European construction is used as a means to dissolve Nation-states within a superstructure similar to the Roman Empire. == Controversy ==

Houellebecq had commented on his own novel in an interview with The Paris Review 5 days ahead of publication: In advance of the novel's publication, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls declared, "France is not Michel Houellebecq . . . it's not intolerance, hatred, fear." The book generated instant controversy and criticism from the French Left for its portrayal of Islam calling it islamophobic. Lydia Kiesling, writing for Slate, stated, "There is a way in which Submission is not, strictly speaking, Islamophobic. But it does Aylan Kurdi no favors." The New York Times likewise argued Submission "plays on French fears of terrorism, immigration and changing demographics." Rob Doyle of The Irish Times found the themes of the book favourable to Islam, stating Houellebecq "suggests that yielding to the rule of Islam, with its reassuring social and sexual hierarchies, might be a good option for an otherwise terminal Europe." Adam Shatz, writing for the London Review of Books, stated that it "is the work of a nihilist not a hater – the jeu d’esprit of a man without convictions". Three critics also suggested the novel promoted misogynistic views. Erik Martiny's review in The London Magazine highlighted that "gender hierarchy is presented in the novel as the essential backbone to a healthy, stable society." Heller McAlpin's review for the NPR concluded with the line, "I'm hoping that women, at least, won't take this insulting scenario lying down," while Lydia Kiesling contextualized the book's depiction of women by stating Submission contains an "Evo-Psych 101 correlation of women's worth with their sexual viability" prevalent in both Houellebecq's work and his personal comments. ==Adaptations==

A monologue stage performance with Edgar Selge as François toured Germany in early 2016 with dates in Hamburg, Dresden and Berlin. According to Die Zeit, interest in the story was piqued by the New Year's Eve sexual assaults in Germany. A German film adaptation, based both on the novel and the stage performance, was produced by the television channel Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg as Unterwerfung. The film stars Selge who reprises his role from the stage version. The film premiered on German public broadcaster ARD on 6 June 2018, followed by a roundtable, which resulted in "a broad internet discussion," in calls for all German political talkshows to be suspended for one year, and in an apology from ARD presenter Sandra Maischberger. == Editions and translations ==

• Soumission, French, Flammarion, 7 January 2015 • Sottomissione, Italian translation, Bompiani, 15 January 2015 (Translator: V. Vega) • Unterwerfung, German translation, Dumont Buchverlag, 16 January 2015 (Translators: Norma Cassau and Bernd Wilczek) • Behódolás, Hungarian translation, Magvető, 22 April 2015 (Translator: Ágnes Tótfalusi) • Submissió, Catalan translation, Anagrama, 29 April 2015 (Translator: Oriol Sánchez Vaqué) • Sumisión, Spanish translation, Anagrama, 29 April 2015 (Translator: Joan Riambau) • Onderworpen, Dutch translation, Arbeiderspers, May 2015 (Translator: Martin de Haan) • Supunere, Romanian translation, Humanitas, May 2015 (Translator: Daniel Nicolescu) • Pokoravanje, Serbo-Croat translation, Buybook, May 2015 (Translator: Vladimir Janković) • כניעה, Hebrew translation, babel, May 2015 (Translator: Amit Rotbard) • 복종, Korean translation, Munhakdongne, 17 July 2015 (Translator: 장소미) • Uległość, Polish translation, W.A.B., 9 September 2015 (Translator: Beata Geppert) • Submission, English translation, William Heinemann, 10 September 2015 (Translator: Lorin Stein) • Fukujū, Japanese translation, Kadokawa shinsho, 11 September 2015 (Translator: Ōtsuka Momo) • Underkastelse, Swedish translation, Albert Bonniers, October 2015 (Translator: Kristoffer Leandoer) • Podvolení, Czech translation, Odeon, October 2015 (Translator: Alan Beguivin) • Underkastelse, Danish translation, Rosinante, 1 October 2015 (Translator: Niels Lyngsø) • Alistuminen, Finnish translation, WSOY, 21 October 2015 (Translator: Lotta Toivanen) • Submissão, Brazilian Portuguese translation, Objetiva, December 2015 (Translator: Rosa Freire d'Aguiar) • Underkastelse, Norwegian translation, Cappelen Damm, February 2016 (Translator: Tom Lotherington) • Undirgefni, Icelandic translation, Mál og Menning, February 2016 (Translator: Friðrik Rafnsson) • Pakļaušanās, Latvian translation, Jāņa Rozes apgāds, June 2016 (Translator: Dens Dimiņš) • Pasidavimas, Lithuanian translation, Kitos knygos, 5 November 2015 (Translator: Goda Bulybenko) • Alistumine, Estonian translation, Varrak, 21 November 2016 (Translator: Triinu Tamm) • Podreditev, Slovenian translation, Cankarjeva založba, December 2016 (Translator: Mojca Medvešek) • Подчинение, Bulgarian translation, Fakel Express, 2015 (Translator: Alexandra Veleva) • Покорность, Russian translation, Corpus, 2016 (Translator: Marija Zonina) • Покора, Ukrainian translation, Klub Simeinoho Dozvillia, 2015 (Translator: Ivan Riabchyi) • Հնազանդություն, Armenian translation, Antares, 2017 (Translator: Ruzan Murzoyan) • İtaat, Turkish translation, İthaki, 2011 (Translator: Başak Öztürk) == See also ==