"Which writers — novelists, playwrights, critics, philosophers, journalists, poets — working today do you admire most?
Portuguese novelist António Lobo Antunes. Michel Houellebecq, the cardinal writer of my generation, the one before whom all of us, whether we like it or not (and without his having willed it), have had to measure ourselves. This actually worked out well for me, because we wrote a book together (“Public Enemies,” Random House, 2011)." Think about it: for a bigoted man like this guy to have such respectability and acceptability by New York Times and other mainstream media is very much like the Nazis who accorded respectability on the likes of Alfred Rosenberg. Notice how he has the habit to granting himself legitimacy by invoking places he visits as in this article: "I’m answering your questions from Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan....As a matter of fact, I was tidying up my library before leaving for Erbil."