Additional information
by Paul Lynch (Author)
WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE 2023 - INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER
Winner of the 2024 Dayton Literary Peace Prize
Finalist for the 2024 Kirkus Prize
Shortlisted for the 2025 Dublin Literary Award
One of The Irish Times's 100 Best Books of the 21st Century
"A prophetic masterpiece." - Ron Charles, Washington Post
On a dark, wet evening in Dublin, scientist and mother-of-four Eilish Stack answers her front door to find two officers from Ireland's newly formed secret police on her step. They have arrived to interrogate her husband, a trade unionist.
Ireland is falling apart, caught in the grip of a government turning towards tyranny. As the life she knows and the ones she loves disappear before her eyes, Eilish must contend with the dystopian logic of her new, unraveling country. How far will she go to save her family? And what--or who--is she willing to leave behind?
The winner of the Booker Prize 2023 and a critically acclaimed national bestseller, Prophet Song presents a terrifying and shocking vision of a country sliding into authoritarianism and a deeply human portrait of a mother's fight to hold her family together.
Author Biography
Paul Lynch is the author of five novels. His most recent novel, Prophet Song, won the 2023 Booker Prize and The Dayton Literary Peace Peace Prize for Fiction. He has previously won the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year and France's Prix Libr'à Nous for Best Foreign Novel, among other prizes. He has been shortlisted for many international awards, including the UK's Walter Scott Prize, Italy's Strega European Prize, France's Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger, Prix Littérature-Monde, and the Jean Monnet Prize for European Literature. In 2024, he was appointed Distinguished Writing Fellow at Maynooth University and was elected to Aosdána, the Irish academy for the arts honoring distinguished artists. His novels have been translated into 35 languages.
