The winner of the 2023 Booker Prize for fiction was announced today, with Irish author Paul Lynch receiving the £50,000 prize for the novel, Prophet Song.
Set in Dublin, Eilish Stack is a mother of four. One night, two officers from Ireland's secret police show up seeking her husband. As the government lurches towards tyranny, Eilish does whatever she can to keep her family together. The Judges write 'Paul Lynch's harrowing and dystopian Prophet Song vividly renders a mother's determination to protect her family as Ireland's liberal democracy slides inexorably and terrifyingly into totalitarianism.'
Paul Lynch was born in Limerick and now calls Dublin home. He was a film critic and cinema writer for the Sunday Tribune and Sunday Times. His previous novels are Red Sky in Morning (2013), The Black Snow (2014), Grace (2017) and Beyond the Sea (2019)
Chair of the Judging panel, Esi Edugyan, said of Prophet Song:
‘From that first knock at the door, Prophet Song forces us out of our complacency as we follow the terrifying plight of a woman seeking to protect her family in an Ireland descending into totalitarianism. We felt unsettled from the start, submerged in – and haunted by – the sustained claustrophobia of Lynch’s powerfully constructed world. He flinches from nothing, depicting the reality of state violence and displacement and offering no easy consolations.
‘Here the sentence is stretched to its limits – Lynch pulls off feats of language that are stunning to witness. He has the heart of a poet, using repetition and recurring motifs to create a visceral reading experience. This is a triumph of emotional storytelling, bracing and brave. With great vividness, Prophet Song captures the social and political anxieties of our current moment. Readers will find it soul-shattering and true, and will not soon forget its warnings.’
With three guys name Paul in the shortlist, it was a safe bet that one would win. I am pleased it is Paul Lynch for Prophet Song. While I have not yet read this novel, I love dystopian fiction, and this book stood out on the list as one that I would likely enjoy.
