The story of a family and a country on the brink of disaster as an imaginary Irish government veers toward tyranny is told in Prophet Song, which landed Paul Lynch this year's Booker Prize, worth $65,000.
This fifth novel by Paul Lynch seeks to portray the malaise in Western democracies.
Writer Paul Lynch with his 2023 Booker Prize winning work
"... Prophet Song jolts us out of complacency as it follows the terrifying plight of a woman trying to protect her family in a country falling into totalitarianism. It is a triumph of emotional, courageous storytelling," said Esi Edugyan, chair of the 2023 Booker Prize jury.
Paul Lynch - formerly chief film critic for Ireland's Sunday Tribune - said he wanted readers to understand totalitarianism by portraying the intense social reality in the novel.
"I wanted to leave the reader with a deeper understanding of the issue by the end of the book, not just understanding it but feeling it for themselves. I didn't write Prophet Song to specifically say 'this is a warning', I wrote it to convey the message that what happens in the book is happening across time, across all eras, and that perhaps we need to dig deeper into our own responses to that kind of idea. It was not an easy book to write. The rational part of me believed that I was ruining my career by writing this novel. But I had to write it anyway. I had no choice in such matters," Paul Lynch wrote in a comment posted on the Booker Prize website.
Paul Lynch speaks at the 2023 Booker Prize ceremony in London on November 26.
The competition organisers said Paul Lynch became the fifth Irish author to win the Booker Prize, following Iris Murdoch, John Banville, Roddy Doyle and Anne Enright. Northern Irish writer Anna Burns won in 2018.
Past winners of the Booker Prize - first awarded in 1969 - include Margaret Atwood, Salman Rushdie and Yann Martel. This year's jury is chaired by novelist Esi Edugyan, while the other members include actor-writer-director Adjoa Andoh, poet-editor-critic Mary Jean Chan, writer James Shapiro and actor-writer Robert Webb.
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