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Michel Houellebecq today won the Goncourt prize, France’s most prestigious literary award, for Le Carte et Le Territoire (The Map and the Territory).
Houellebecq wins only €10, but is expected to be boosted up the French bestseller lists.
The enfant terrible of French fiction was shortlisted for the Goncourt three times before, for Les Particules Elémentaires (Atomised in the UK and The Elementary Particles in the US) in 1998, for Plateforme (Platform) in 2001 and for La Possibilité d’une Ile (The Possibility of an Island) in 2005.
The Map and the Territory is his first novel for five years, covering the themes of art, money and love, and described by the publisher as part thriller and part satire.
Houllebecq, whose work has been translated into more than 40 languages, is either revered or reviled. He has been accused of islamphobia, misogyny, obscenity and racism. The New York Times described Atomised as "a deeply repugnant read".
Houellebecq was also accused of plagiarising Wikipedia for The Map and the Territory, which was published by Flammarion. He denied the charges, citing Jorge Luis Borges and Georges Perec as other masters of blending existing texts into fiction.
The Prix Goncourt was created in 1903 and has been awarded to authors such as Marcel Proust, Andre Malraux, Simone de Beauvoir and Marguerite Duras. In 2006, Jonathan Littell was the first American to win the prize, for Les Bienveillantes (The Kindly Ones), which he wrote in French.
The Map and the Territory will be published by William Heinemann in September 2011 in the UK, with a paperback edition to be published by Vintage the following year.