Paul Lynch wins Booker Prize for ‘Prophet Song’

When Paul Lynch, the Irish writer, started working on his fifth novel, he thought about it the long civil war in Syria and the West’s apparent indifference to those fleeing the conflict.

So he created a book that could clarify this plight.

That novel, “Prophet Song,” which depicts a near-future Ireland descending into totalitarianism and then a civil war that leads to families fleeing the country, has won the Booker Prize, the prestigious literary award.

On Sunday, Esi Edugyan, a novelist and chairman of this year’s jury, said that “Prophet Song” resonated with contemporary crises, including the war between Israel and Hamas, but that the novel won solely on its literary merits. “This is a triumph of emotional stories, encouraging and courageous,” Edugyan said at a press conference before the announcement.

The judges were not unanimous in their decision even after six hours of debate, Edugyan said. Still, she added, the panel felt “Prophet Song” was a worthy winner, “reflecting the social and political concerns of our current times.”

‘Prophet Song’, which Grove Atlantic is expected to publish beat five other shortlisted titles on December 12 in North America, including Paul Murray’s ‘The Bee Sting’, Chetna Maroo’s ‘Western Lane’ and Paul Harding’s ‘This Other Eden’. The other shortlisted novels were ‘If I Survive You’ by Jonathan Escoffery and ‘Study for Obedience’ by Sarah Bernstein.

The Booker, which carries a cash prize of £50,000, or roughly $63,000, is awarded annually to the best novel written in English and published in Britain or Ireland. Previous winners include literary giants such as Hilary Mantel, Salman Rushdie and Margaret Atwood, although the prize is also known for helping create stars. Last year, Shehan Karunatilaka, a Sri Lankan novelist, won for “The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida,” a novel that explores the trauma of his country’s civil war.

Lynch, 46, a former film critic, made his literary debut in 2013 with “Red Sky in Morning,” set in the 19th century, about an Irishman who flees to America after killing a man. His other novels include “Beyond the Sea,‘ about two men stranded off the coast, and ‘Grace’, set during an Irish famine. Katherine Grant, reviewing that book in The New York Times, joked that “it’s not hard to tell the difference between Paul Lynch’s writing and a ray of sunshine.” Lynch had “an unabated hunger for the depiction of suffering,” she added.

Set in the near future, ‘Prophet Song’ centers on Eilish Stack, a scientist and mother of four, whose trade unionist is taken away by security forces, an early sign of growing authoritarian rule that ultimately plunges Ireland into the midst of a crisis. civil war.

The novel has received mixed reviews in Britain and Ireland. Lucia Popescu in The Financial Times said it was “a compassionate, propulsive and timely novel that forces the reader to imagine – what if this were me?” As Aimée Walsh enters The observercalled it ‘a crucial book for our current times’, and Laura Hackett, in The Times of Londoncalled it “an exercise in totalitarianism in numbers.”

said Anthony Cummins in The Guardian that there was “something almost obscenely decadent” about the book’s recasting of refugees crossing the sea as middle-class Europeans. But “whatever else it is, ‘Prophet Song’ is a novel worth discussing.” This year’s Bookers judges may have proven that point during their six-hour deliberations. “There was another way things could have gone,” Edugyan, the chairman, said at the news conference. Ultimately, she added, the judges all “felt that this was the book we wanted to present to the world – that this was truly a masterful work of fiction.”