The Map and the Territory

The Map and the Territory is the fifth novel by French author Michel Houellebecq, published on 4 September 2010 by Flammarion. Its title refers to Alfred Korzybski's maxim that the map is not the territory, and the story revolves around a successful artist. It appeared five years after The Possibility of an Island and was one of the most anticipated and debated novels of the 2010 French literary season.

The protagonist is Jed Martin, a fictional artist who becomes famous through two series of works: photographs of Michelin road maps and realistic paintings of professional trades. The narrative follows his personal and creative life, his relationship with an aging architect father, and his unsuccessful involvement with a Russian executive at Michelin. Once wealthy and celebrated, Jed visits Houellebecq in Ireland to ask him to write the catalogue text for an exhibition and to offer to paint his portrait. A few months later the writer is brutally murdered, and Jed helps Inspector Jasselin investigate the crime.

In a televised interview after winning the Goncourt, Houellebecq named as central themes ageing, the relationship between father and son, and the representation of reality through art. The novel also features real figures from French literature and media, among them Frédéric Beigbeder, Julien Lepers and Jean-Pierre Pernaut.

The book won the Prix Goncourt on 8 November 2010, on the first ballot, with seven votes to two against Virginie Despentes's Apocalypse bébé. It was the first time since 1980 that the prize had gone to a Flammarion novel. Shortly afterwards a controversy arose over passages taken from the French Wikipedia without attribution; the publisher explained that the author often draws on documentary texts and websites as raw material for his novels.