Age, Biography and Wiki

Michel Houellebecq (Michel Thomas) was born on 26 February, 1956 in Saint-Pierre, Réunion, France, is a French writer (born 1956). Discover Michel Houellebecq's Biography, Age, Height, Physical Stats, Dating/Affairs, Family and career updates. Learn How rich is he in this year and how he spends money? Also learn how he earned most of networth at the age of 68 years old?

Popular As Michel Thomas
Occupation Novelist, filmmaker and poet
Age 68 years old
Zodiac Sign Pisces
Born 26 February 1956
Birthday 26 February
Birthplace Saint-Pierre, Réunion, France
Nationality France

We recommend you to check the complete list of Famous People born on 26 February. He is a member of famous Novelist with the age 68 years old group.

Michel Houellebecq Height, Weight & Measurements

At 68 years old, Michel Houellebecq height not available right now. We will update Michel Houellebecq's Height, weight, Body Measurements, Eye Color, Hair Color, Shoe & Dress size soon as possible.

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Dating & Relationship status

He is currently single. He is not dating anyone. We don't have much information about He's past relationship and any previous engaged. According to our Database, He has no children.

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Michel Houellebecq Net Worth

His net worth has been growing significantly in 2023-2024. So, how much is Michel Houellebecq worth at the age of 68 years old? Michel Houellebecq’s income source is mostly from being a successful Novelist. He is from France. We have estimated Michel Houellebecq's net worth, money, salary, income, and assets.

Net Worth in 2024 $1 Million - $5 Million
Salary in 2024 Under Review
Net Worth in 2023 Pending
Salary in 2023 Under Review
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Source of Income Novelist

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Timeline

1956

Michel Houellebecq (born Michel Thomas, 26 February 1956 or 1958) is a French author of novels, poems and essays, as well as an occasional actor, filmmaker and singer.

His first book was a biographical essay on the horror writer H. P. Lovecraft.

Houellebecq was born in 1956 on the French island of Réunion, the son of Lucie Ceccaldi, a French physician born in Algeria of Corsican descent, and René Thomas, a ski instructor and mountain guide.

1961

He lived in Algeria from the age of five months until 1961, with his maternal grandmother.

In a lengthy autobiographical article published on his website (now defunct), he states that his parents "lost interest in [his] existence pretty quickly", and at the age of six, he was sent to France to live with his paternal grandmother, a communist, while his mother left to live a hippie lifestyle in Brazil with her recent boyfriend.

His grandmother's maiden name was Houellebecq, which he took as his pen name.

Later, he went to Lycée Henri Moissan, a high school at Meaux north-east of Paris, as a boarder.

He then went to Lycée Chaptal in Paris to follow preparation courses in order to qualify for grandes écoles (elite schools).

1975

He began attending the Institut National Agronomique Paris-Grignon in 1975.

He started a literary review called Karamazov (named after Fyodor Dostoevsky's last novel) and wrote poetry.

1980

He graduated in 1980, married and had a son; then he divorced, and became depressed.

1985

Houellebecq's first poems appeared in 1985 in the magazine La Nouvelle Revue.

1990

Throughout the 1990s, Houellebecq published several books of poetry, including Le sens du combat in 1996 (translated as The Art of Struggle, which, in a 2005 video interview for the magazine Les Inrockuptibles, he cited as his most accomplished book to date, the one he would usually choose if compelled to read whatever he wanted among his published works), and articles in magazines (such as Les Inrockuptibles) or more confidential literary publications (such as L'Infini edited by Philippe Sollers).

1991

Six years later, in 1991, he published a biographical essay on the horror writer H. P. Lovecraft, a teenage passion, with the programmatic subtitle Against the World, Against Life.

1994

Houellebecq published his first novel, Whatever, in 1994.

Meanwhile, he worked as a computer administrator in Paris, including at the French National Assembly, before he became the so-called "pop star of the single generation", starting to gain fame in 1994 with his debut novel Extension du domaine de la lutte, published by Maurice Nadeau (translated in English by Paul Hammond and published as Whatever).

It reads as a first-person narrative, alternating between realistic accounts of the (unnamed) protagonist's bleak and solitary life as a computer programmer, and his idiosyncratic musings about society, some of which are presented in the form of "animal fictions"; he teams up with an even more desperate colleague (he is a virgin at the age of 28) who later gets killed in a car accident, which triggers the narrator's mental breakdown and eventual admission in a psychiatric hospital; even there, he theorizes about his condition being the direct result of the contemporary social configuration, rather than a personal failure or mental illness.

1996

He has published several books of poetry, including The Art of Struggle in 1996.

His second novel, Les Particules Élémentaires (translated by Frank Wynne and published in the English-speaking world as Atomised in the UK, or The Elementary Particles in the US) was a breakthrough, bringing him national and soon international fame and controversy for its intricate mix of brutally honest social commentary and pornographic depictions (two years earlier, in 1996, while working on that novel, being interviewed by Andrew Hussey, he had presciently said : "It will either destroy me or make me famous." ) It narrates the fate of two half brothers who grew up in the troubled 1960s: Michel Djerzinski, who became a prominent biologist, highly successful as a scientist but utterly withdrawn and depressed, and Bruno Clément, a French teacher, deeply disturbed and obsessed by sex; Djerzinski eventually triggers what is labelled as the "third metaphysical mutation" by retro-engineering the human species into immortal neo-humans.

1998

His next novel, Atomised, published in 1998, brought him international fame as well as controversy.

He married his second wife, Marie-Pierre Gauthier, in 1998.

Most of those texts were later collected in Interventions (1998, expanded in 2009 and 2020).

At that time, he lived at the same address as fellow writer Marc-Édouard Nabe, at 103, rue de la Convention in Paris.

The book won the 1998 Prix Novembre (which was renamed Prix Décembre, following the resignation of its founder who disapproved of the prize being given to Houellebecq), missing the more prestigious Prix Goncourt for which it was the favourite.

The novel became an instant "nihilistic classic" and was mostly praised for the boldness of its ideas and thought-provoking qualities, although it was also heavily criticized for its relentless bleakness and vivid depictions of racism, paedophilia, torture, as well as for being an apology for eugenics (Michiko Kakutani described it in The New York Times as "a deeply repugnant read" ).

2001

Platform followed in 2001.

An offhand remark about Islam during a publicity tour for his 2001 novel Platform led to Houellebecq being taken to court for inciting racial hatred (he was eventually cleared of all charges).

He subsequently moved to Ireland for several years, before moving back to France, where he currently resides.

2002

The novel won Houellebecq (along with his translator, Frank Wynne) the International Dublin Literary Award in 2002.

2006

Nabe wrote about this proximity in Le Vingt-Septième Livre (2006), comparing both neighbours' careers and the way their writings were met by critics and audiences.

2010

In 2010, he published The Map and the Territory, which won the prestigious Prix Goncourt.

They divorced in 2010.

2015

He was described in 2015 as "France’s biggest literary export and, some say, greatest living writer."

In 2015, his next novel, Submission, sparked another controversy for its depiction of Islam.

He was also recently accused of plagiarism concerning Submission.

Anéantir was published in 2022.

2016

A short poetical essay named Rester vivant : méthode (To Stay Alive) appeared the same year, dealing with the art of writing as a way of life – or rather, a way of not-dying and being able to write in spite of apathy and disgust for life (a film adaptation was made in 2016).

It was followed by his first collection of poetry, La poursuite du bonheur (The pursuit of happiness).

2017

In a 2017 DW article he is dubbed the "undisputed star, and enfant terrible, of modern French literature".

2018

His third marriage was in September 2018 to Qianyun Lysis Li, a Chinese woman 34 years his junior, and a student of his works.