Irish author Paul Lynch won the Booker Prize for 2023 on Sunday for his novel "Prophet Song," which tells the story of a family and a nation on the brink of disaster as a fictional Irish government descends into tyranny. Lynch's fifth novel seeks to illustrate the turmoil in Western democracies and their indifference to catastrophes like the collapse that occurred in Syria.
Ijeoma Oluo, the chair of the Booker Prize judging panel for 2023, said, "From the first knock on the door, Prophet Song forced us to confront our complacency as we followed the harrowing plight of a woman striving to protect her family in an Ireland descending into totalitarianism." She added, "This is a victory for heartfelt storytelling and courage."
Lynch, who previously served as the chief film critic for the Irish Sunday Tribune, expressed his desire for readers to understand totalitarianism by highlighting the harsh reality through his stark realism in writing. In comments published on the Booker Prize website, Lynch stated, "I wanted to immerse the reader to such an extent that by the end of the book, they would not only know about this problem but also feel it themselves."
The competition organizers mentioned that Lynch has become 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 the prize in 2018. Among previous Booker Prize winners, awarded for the first time in 1969, are Margaret Atwood, Salman Rushdie, and Yann Martel. "Prophet Song" was published in Britain by One World, which also published the prize-winning works in 2015 and 2016.
