London [UK]: Irish author Paul Lynch won the 2023 Booker Prize for his dystopian novel ‘Prophet Song’, which presents an imaginary near-future of Ireland descending into totalitarianism, followed by a civil war, the New York Times reported.
‘Prophet Song’ is set in the near future centres on Eilish Stack, a scientist and mother of four, whose trade unionist husband is taken by the security forces, an early sign of growing authoritarian rule that eventually sees Ireland in the midst of a civil war, according to New York Times.
Esi Edugyan, a novelist and the chair of this year’s judging panel, said that “Prophet Song” resonated with contemporary crises including the Israel-Hamas war, but that the novel had won solely on its literary merits.
“This is a triumph of emotional storytelling, bracing and brave,” Edugyan said in a news conference before the announcement.
However, the judges weren’t unanimous in their decision, even after six hours of debate, Edugyan said.
Still, she added, the panel felt that ‘Prophet Song’ was a worthy winner that “captures the social and political anxieties of our current moment”.
“There was a different way that things could have gone,” Edugyan said. Ultimately, she added, the judges all “felt that this was the book that we wanted to present to the world — that this was truly a masterful work of fiction.”
‘Prophet Song’, which Grove Atlantic will publish in North America on December 5, beat five other shortlisted titles including Paul Murray’s ‘The Bee Sting’, Chetna Maroo’s ‘Western Lane’ and Paul Harding’s ‘This Other Eden’, New York Times reported.
The other shortlisted novels were Jonathan Escoffery’s ‘If I Survive You’, and Sarah Bernstein’s ‘Study for Obedience’.
Meanwhile, the novel has received mixed reviews in Britain and Ireland, the New York Times reported.
Lucy Popescu in The Financial Times said it was “a compassionate, propulsive and timely novel that forces the reader to imagine — what if this was me?”
While Aimee Walsh, in The Observer, called it “a crucial book for our current times,” and Laura Hackett, in The Times of London, labeled it “an exercise in totalitarianism-by-numbers.”
Katherine Grant, reviewing that book in The New York Times, joked that “it’s not difficult to tell the difference between Paul Lynch’s writing and a ray of sunshine.” Lynch had “an undiminished appetite for the depiction of suffering,” she added.
Anthony Cummins said in The Guardian that there was “something almost obscenely decadent” about the book’s recasting of sea-crossing refugees as middle-class Europeans. But “whatever else it is, ‘Prophet Song’ is a novel to argue about.”
Lynch, 46, a former movie 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 offshore, and ‘Grace’, set during an Irish famine.
The Booker, which comes with a cash prize of 50,000 euros, or roughly USD 63,000, is awarded annually to the best novel written in English, and published in Britain or Ireland, New York Times reported.
Founded in 1969, previous winners include such literary giants 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 examining the trauma of his country’s civil war.
