It is thanks to the controversial French writer Michel Houellebecq that I discovered the fabled Vierge Noir – Black Madonna – of Rocamadour, which features in his (in)famous novel Submission.
Published – by a macabre coincidence – in France on the same day as the Islamist terrorist attack against the offices of Charlie Hebdo in 2015, Houellebecq’s startling novel portrays France coming under an Islamic government. Amid all this, the novel’s protagonist makes a pilgrimage to Rocamadour in south-western France to see its Black Virgin in an attempt to rekindle his faith.
