Paul Lynch’s Prophet Song has won the Booker Prize for this year. The outstanding novel covers the struggles of an Irish family involving Eilish Stack, a mother of four, who’s trying to protect her family as Ireland goes into totalitarianism. Prophet Song is uniquely narrated with no paragraph breaks, giving it an unconventional touch.
Booker Prize chair Esi Edugyan spoke about the win. He mentions how the novel “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”. For his incredible book, Lynch received a prize of 50,000 pounds, which is nearly $63,000.
As per the Washington Post, Lynch was one of the novelists whose first name was Paul, among the ones shortlisted for the prize and “awarded annually to a work of long-form fiction published in Britain and Ireland.”He was also among the four Irish writers longlisted for the year and the fifth Irish author to win the prize for the same. Before this, Anna Burns, a Northern Irish writer, won the award in 2018 for her book Milkman. Her book too had fewer paragraph breaks and covered totalitarianism.
For his outstanding book, Lynch spent about four years writing, as per the Guardian. He also had different things in mind while covering it, including world events like Brexit and the rise of nationalism in Europe.
The decision for the winning book came on Saturday after six hours of thinking. It also came up as a collegial discussion from the judges. Judges who declared the book as a win decided to look for timelessness in the book, and the Prophet Song matched the requirement perfectly. It will be published in the US on December 12.
Navkiran Dhaliwal is a seasoned content writer with 10+ years of experience. When she's not writing, she can be found cooking up a storm or spending time with her dog, Rain.