Irish writer Paul Lynch wins Booker Prize with dystopian novel Prophet Song

Irish author Paul Lynch poses with his book 'Prophet Song' in London. Photo / AP

Irish writer Paul Lynch won the Booker Prize for fiction on Sunday with what judges called a “soul-shattering” novel about a woman’s struggle to protect her family as Ireland collapses into totalitarianism and war.

“Prophet Song,” set in a dystopian fictional version of Dublin, was awarded the £50,000 ($104,000) literary prize at a ceremony in London. Canadian writer Esi Edugyan, who chaired the judging panel, said the book is “a triumph of emotional storytelling, bracing and brave” in which Lynch “pulls off feats of language that are stunning to witness”.

Lynch, 46, had been the bookies’ favourite to win the prestigious prize, which usually brings a big boost in sales. His book beat five other finalists from Ireland, the UK, the US and Canada, chosen from 163 novels submitted by publishers.

Lynch has called “Prophet Song,” his fifth novel, an attempt at “radical empathy” that tries to plunge readers into the experience of living in a collapsing society.

“I was trying to see into the modern chaos,” he told the Booker website. “The unrest in Western democracies. The problem of Syria — the implosion of an entire nation, the scale of its refugee crisis and the West’s indifference. … I wanted to deepen the reader’s immersion to such a degree that by the end of the book, they would not just know, but feel this problem for themselves.”

The five prize judges met to pick the winner on Saturday, less than 48 hours after far-right violence erupted in Dublin following a stabbing attack on a group of children.

Edugyan said that immediate events didn’t directly influence the choice of winner. She said that Lynch’s book “captures the social and political anxieties of our current moment” but also deals with “timeless” themes.

The other finalists were Irish writer Paul Murray’s “The Bee Sting”; American novelist Paul Harding’s “This Other Eden”; Canadian author Sarah Bernstein’s “Study for Obedience”; US writer Jonathan Escoffery’s “If I Survive You”; and British author Chetna Maroo’s “Western Lane”.

From left, Irish author Paul Lynch, British author Chetna Maroo, American author Jonathan Escoffery, Canadian author Sarah Bernstein, Irish author Paul Murray and American author Paul Harding pose with their books during a photocall for the Booker Prize 2023, in London. Photo / AP

Edugyan said the choice of winner wasn’t unanimous, but the six-hour judges’ meeting wasn’t acrimonious.

“We all ultimately felt that this was the book that we wanted to present to the world and that this was truly a masterful work of fiction,” she said.

Founded in 1969, the Booker Prize is open to English-language novels from any country published in the UK and Ireland. and has a reputation for transforming writers’ careers. Previous winners include Ian McEwan, Margaret Atwood, Salman Rushdie, Hilary Mantel and New Zealanders Keri Hulme and Eleanor Catton.

Lynch received his trophy from last year’s winner, Sri Lankan author Shehan Karunatilaka, during a ceremony at Old Billingsgate, a grand former Victorian fish market in central London.

The evening included a speech from Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British-Iranian woman who was jailed in Tehran for almost six years until 2022 on allegations of plotting the overthrow of Iran’s government — a charge that she, her supporters and rights groups denied.

She talked about the books that sustained her in prison, including Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale”, set in an oppressive American theocracy.

“Books helped me to take refuge into the world of others when I was incapable of making one of my own,” Zaghari-Ratcliffe said. “They salvaged me by being one of the very few tools I had, together with imagination, to escape the Evin (prison) walls without physically moving.”