Prophet Song By Ireland’s Paul Lynch Wins 2023 Booker Prize (Image:X/Richard Daub)
Irish author Paul Lynch won the Booker Prize of the year 2023 for his Prophet Song, on Sunday. The renowned accolade was announced at the Old Billingsgate in London and Paul Lynch titled the prize after beating Chetna Maroo’s Western Lane. Chetna Maroo is a London-based Indian-origin author and Western Lane is her debut novel. The Prize is given for the best fiction of the year, written in English and published in UK and Ireland.
The 46-year-old Ireland’s Paul Lynch was awarded the 2023 Booker Prize for his dystopian vision of his nation which was in the clutches of totalitarianism. According to him, the novel was inspired by the Syrian war and refugee crisis. He received £50,000 as the prize money, which is approximately fifty-two lakhs in Indian rupees, and the “Iris” trophy.
We”re delighted to announce that the winner of the #BookerPrize2023 is Prophet Song by Paul Lynch.
Huge congratulations to @paullynchwriter. 🎉
Discover the book: https://t.co/o890YuwYOV pic.twitter.com/Z0Ab0eH3LU
— The Booker Prizes (@TheBookerPrizes) November 26, 2023
The announcement was broadcasted on BBC Radio 4″s Front Row and live streamed on YouTube. “It is with immense pleasure that I bring the Booker home to Ireland… This was not an easy book to write”, said Paul Lynch after receiving the award. He is the fifth Irish author to win the award while the last Irish writer Anna Burns won the award in 2018. In the previous year Shehan Karunatilaka won the prize for The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, whose story centres on Sri Lankan civil war.
Paul Lynch was born in 1997 and is primarily known for his poetic, lyrical style and exploration of complex themes. To his bag, he had published five novels and won several awards including the Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award. Prophet Song is his fifth novel, a dystopian fiction, published by Oneworld.
THE MOMENT @paullynchwriter 🎉🎉🎉 #BookerPrize2023 pic.twitter.com/ViONhDYrGp
— Oneworld Publications (@OneworldNews) November 26, 2023
The novel features the struggles of the Stack Family, including Eilish Stack, a mother of four who is trying to save her family as Ireland slips into totalitarianism. The narrative pattern of the novel is very much interesting as it has no paragraph breaks. The book was an inspiration of the Syrian Civil War and the refugee crisis, and the authors concern over the West’s indifference to the plight of refugees.
