The Map and the Territory is the story of artist Jed Martin. His early work was followed by a surprisingly successful series featuring Michelin road maps, followed by global fame and fortune, when he turns to painting and produces a host of portraits that capture a wide range of professions, from the commonplace (the owner of a local bar) to the autobiographical (his father, an accomplished architect) and from the celebrated (Bill Gates and Steve Jobs Discussing the Future of Information Technology) to the literary (a writer named Houellebecq, with whom he develops an unusually close relationship). The subsequent events prove profoundly unsettling and Jed Martin somehow discovers serenity.

This novel is considererd Houellebecqs magnum opus. It certainly lives up to the authors fame of being one of the most interesting, provocative and important European novelist of today. “This is the brilliant and controversial French writer’s most intellectually ambitious book.... Funny, astonishing and authoritative.” The Guardian