French novelist Michel Houellebecq’s allegedly controversial new novel Soumission (Submission; not yet available in English translation)—which was released on the day of the massacre of twelve people at satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, including Houellebecq’s friend, Bernard Maris—has shot to the top of Germany’s charts in its first week of sales, nudging out Ian McEwan’s The Children Act.

Soumission, translated as “Unterwerfung” in German, imagines a dystopian France (of 2022) where France’s new Islamic party, Mohammed Ben Abbes, beats out Front National leader Marine le Pen. After the conversion takes effect, women flee the workforce and wear veils.

The publisher sold 120,000 copies in the first five days the book went on sale in France, according to French trade magazine Livres Hebdo, and despite Houellebecq’s cancelled book tour in the wake of the attacks. In Germany, Publisher Dumont said on Monday, “We have now printed in four runs 270,000 copies of Unterwerfung and delivered... 230,000 of those to the book stores.”

Katy Derbyshire, translator and writer of German books, said of Houllebecq’s book, “He’s always been big here (popular with intellectual machos) but there’s been extra hype this time.”

She added: “Translated fiction does very well in Germany… [right now] six of the ten fiction bestsellers are translated [works], which is fairly typical…. It’s just a different literary culture….”

The book will be published in English by Farrar, Straus & Giroux and does not yet have an American publication date.