Michel Houellebecq, the star of French letters, again victim of hacking

Michel Houellebecq's last book, Anéantir, was parity.

Here, the writer on April 25, 2019, during a debate in Paris.

Lionel Bonaventure AFP / Archivos

Text by: Sébastien Jédor Follow

2 min

The literary community only talks about that.

The new book by the sulphurous Michel Houellebecq, one of the most widely read French authors in the world, has been hacked!

due out in bookstores on January 7, but, if we look carefully, we can already find copies on the Internet.

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The case broke out on Wednesday, December 22 in the evening.

Several Twitter accounts report that pirate sites offer a PDF version of

and that these are good quality copies.

Two illegal sites would have put on line

in this PDF format and another site would have done it in e-pub format, used for e-readers.

This last file, more practical and pleasant to read than the PDF in theory, would contain, in the case of this pirate copy, some computer bugs.

Pirate sites use mirror sites in different countries (Canada, Russia, United States, Germany ...), which makes them difficult to block.

When one server is closed, the publication reappears on another.

A specialist uses this formula: "

 There have already been thousands of illegal downloads of Michel Houellebecq's book.

Where did the leak come from?

As in any good police investigation, several avenues are available to investigators. First, the press. Six hundred journalists - including obviously several at RFI - received Michel Houellebecq's book on Friday, December 17. The delivery of the book is accompanied by an " 

 ": prohibition to talk about it before December 30. The publisher, Flammarion, even wrote to journalists to ask them " 

 " not to reveal anything that could spoil the reader's pleasure of

.

But the trail of journalists seems unlikely.

Indeed, the press received bound copies of a book with a rather hard cardboard cover.

However, the pirated copies are perfect, which would not have been the case if the book had been placed on a scanner.

Another hypothesis: the leak could come from a sheet-fed, unbound paper version at the publisher ... The electronic version of the book could also have been pirated.

In any case, it is very rare that the investigations are successful.

Houellebecq already a victim of hacking

Exactly seven years ago, at the end of 2014,

, a previous work by Michel Houellebecq had also been released online a few days before its release.

It must be said that Michel Houellebecq, translated in 40 countries, arouses enthusiasm among his admirers, at least equivalent to the detestation of his detractors.

The author has the ability to grasp the climate of an era, to describe the anguish of the contemporary white male in

,

,

or

,

.

The writer is also a specialist in shattering statements about Islam, feminism, leaving the European Union.

Obviously, for the authors of the piracy, the curiosity to see what contained this new book will have been too strong.

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