Michel Houellebecq

Keith Duggan talks to the former Ireland and Munster lock as he opens up about his career

France and the jihadists seem locked in a wrestlers’ hold, a mutual fascination and loathing which neither can escape

Peadar Maxwell is senior child psychologist for the HSE in Wexford

French author Michel Houellebecq has paid tribute to murdered staff of ‘Charlie Hebdo’

Large numbers of students refused to observe minute’s silence for Charlie Hebdo victims

Eyewitnesses recall horror of attack at Paris magazine office

With Europe’s largest Muslim population, France sees itself as a model of equality. Yet Islamists view it as a profoundly anti-Muslim country at war with the Islamic world

Hollande appeals for national unity and so far the political truce has held

The controversial French writer, who was on the cover of this week’s ‘Charlie Hebdo’, again tests the limits of free speech in his new novel, the provocative ‘Submission’

Political fiction reflects French obsession with Islam, writes Lara Marlowe

Alan Gillis is a master of catching his reader by surprise

‘I’m grateful to the authors of shorter books, because my concentration is shot from the internet and all the coffee’

City of Bohane, thriller set in a futuristic west of Ireland, takes €100,000 prize

Kevin Barry’s wonderful novel is a worthy winner of the Impac; but it was chosen from a shortlist that did not reflect the quality of the wider literary field