Heartbreaking scenes: Annihilation, by Michel Houellebecq, reviewed

Michel Houellebecq’s ninth and longest novel, anéantir, was published in France at the beginning of January 2022 with an initial print run of 300,000 copies. Translations into Italian, German and Spanish appeared a few weeks later. Only now, though, is it available in English, a belatedness all the more regrettable because, like several of Houellebecq’s novels, it is set a little in the future (Submission, for example, foreseeing the islamisation of France, was published in 2015 and set in 2022).

Annihilation looks forward to the presidential election of 2027, correctly assuming that Emmanuel Macron, never named but clearly referenced, would have won a second term in 2022. It’s imagined that he will then be manoeuvring to install a puppet president for a term, while he serves as prime minister, so he can return to the presidency afterwards, Putin-style. The novel’s protagonist, Paul Raison, is caught up in this project as the special adviser to the brilliant finance minister Bruno Juge (evidently Bruno Le Maire, Houellebecq’s friend).