ILLEGAL USE OF NARCOTIC DRUGS, PSYCHOTROPIC SUBSTANCES, AND THEIR ANALOGUES CAUSES HARM TO HEALTH, THEIR ILLEGAL TRAFFICKING IS PROHIBITED AND ENTAILS LIABILITY ESTABLISHED BY LAW. "Elementary Particles" is a book by the Goncourt Prize laureate Michel Houellebecq, author of the global bestsellers "The Map and the Territory," "Submission," and "Serotonin." The biologist Michel Jerszinski, predicted by contemporaries to receive the Nobel Prize, went missing without a trace. The renowned scientist made an incredible discovery that could forever change the course of history: thanks to his revolutionary research, the first representative of a new species appears, created in the image and likeness of man but, unlike ordinary people, immortal and devoid of selfishness and cruelty. Who was the mysterious scientist Michel Jerszinski? How did his life get influenced by his eccentric mother, who left him in early childhood, his missing father, his loving grandmother who raised the boy and instilled in him an interest in exact sciences, his uterine older brother Bruno, and school friend Annabel? In the very first year after the publication, "Elementary Particles" sold several hundred thousand copies, turning Michel Houellebecq into a star of intellectual prose. According to Julian Barnes, the writer "hunts big game, while others are content with shooting rabbits," and the Frenchman Frédéric Beigbeder calls this book about Western history in the 20th century "the most important in our literature." The cult novel is published in a new translation by Maria Zonina, which fully pays tribute to Michel Houellebecq, one of the best stylists in contemporary literature.