Booker prize reveals ‘original and thrilling’ 2023 longlist
"If there was ever a crucial book for our current times, it’s Paul Lynch’s Prophet Song...a literary manifesto for empathy for those in need and a brilliant, haunting novel that should be placed into the hands of policymakers everywhere."
— Observer
"Paul Lynch’s harrowing and dystopian Prophet Song vividly renders a mother’s determination to protect her family as Ireland’s liberal democracy slides inexorably and terrifyingly into totalitarianism. Readers will find it timely and unforgettable. It’s a remarkable accomplishment for a novelist to capture the social and political anxieties of our moment so compellingly.“
— Booker Prize Jury
"The Irish offspring of The Handmaid’s Tale and Nineteen Eighty-Four, Paul Lynch’s Booker-longlisted fifth novel is as nightmarish a story as you’ll come across: powerful, claustrophobic and horribly real. From its opening pages it exerts a grim kind of grip; even when approached cautiously and read in short bursts it somehow lingers, its world leaking out from its pages like black ink into clear water… Where Prophet Song leads us in its closing pages is shocking, yet grimly inevitable. We would do well not to look away."
— Guardian
"A gripping, brilliantly realised story of political violence [inviting] comparisons with the work of Margaret Atwood and George Orwell… The local can be anywhere; other people’s nightmares can be yours. This is a masterly novel that reminds us that democracy is always fragile, and that it is fragile now."
— Literary Review
"Thunderously powerful… beautifully measured and solemn prose... Lynch asks us to face some of our darkest fears, and if he offers no comfort, and little hope, then we must surely recognize his true purpose: that the furious reader should return to the real world determined to find a better ending for this story.
— Times Literary Supplement
"Lynch's writing bristles with tension... It's greatest achievement is that at no point do the events depicted feel too improbable to be realistic… In a time when so many novels feel like carbon copies of books we've read before, Prophet Song is entirely original and might well find its Booker journey continuing further yet."
— John Boyne, Sunday Independent
"Eilish is a wonderful creation… Lynch does an excellent job of showing just how swiftly – and plausibly – a society like ours could collapse. Certain sequences read like a thriller – readers will find themselves literally holding their breath – while others are rendered in beautiful, lyrical prose."
— Irish Independent
"A book of encroaching terror… Lynch's language is darkly lyrical, rich."
— Sunday Telegraph
"A chilling fable… Paul Lynch is who we need now to tell us about our contradictory world… Lynch renders this almost-Ireland in fluid, poetic prose, moulding sentences as if they were made of plasticine. It's no surprise that since his debut he has been compared with the American writer Cormac McCarthy."
— Sunday Times (Ireland)
“Prophet Song is a literary tour de force of mesmerising dexterity, a book that comes right at you with all the pace of a thriller… Tense. Terrifying. Heartbreaking”.
— Ros Dee, Sunday Independent
"The fifth novel from one of the most acclaimed Irish writers of his generation… it’s being touted as 'Ireland’s 1984'."
— Telegraph
"I don’t know when I last read a book that left me as shaken and disturbed as Paul Lynch's fifth novel. It is a tremendous achievement… Paul Lynch is a fearless writer - unafraid of taking on large themes and tackling them face to face... Prophet Song is an extraordinary achievement, totally realistic, demonstrating the power of fiction to enhance our empathy for those elsewhere."
— Irish Examiner
"Longlisted for the Bookerprize, and deservedly so, this is one of the most harrowing, minatory and provocative novels I have read in a while. It has the sharp cut of reality despite being set in an alternative version of our world, except for when it is all too recognisable. The final and penultimate chapters are truly shuddersome... The Irish context is important — I thought of it more as a kind of metaphysical novel. At what point do you flee? How do humans cope when faced with the unbearable, the inconceivable? Is the idea of common humanity an ethical fiction? So many books today do not take such questions seriously and reduce real politics to party politics."
— Scotland on Sunday
"While much of the book’s sinister power lies in how Lynch hints at the steps by which democracy gives way to totalitarianism, its real energy comes from how he portrays the continuing everyday pressure of Eilish’s obligations to her children and frail father amid the deepening turmoil."
— Daily Mail
"As Eilish's world begins to disintegrate around her, under the pressure of competing ideology and suspicion, the tension ratchets up almost unbearably. Lynch builds us a new world, and then pulls it apart with immense skill."
— ABC News, Australia
"Paul Lynch constructs a lyrical, devastating exploration of the political, social, and emotional fallout of an authoritarian takeover. Reminiscent of the poetry of Seamus Heaney and the prose of Cormac McCarthy, Lynch’s writing sustains a unique, enchanting narrative voice. Laced with confusion, corruption, and conflict, Prophet Song is a dystopian lament that exquisitely uses the iconic imagery of Ireland, along the lines of James Joyce, to create an atmospherically overwhelming novel, warning of the potential woes of a modern-day fascist purge."
— Readings, Australia
“A chilling study of Ireland becoming a fascist state… Lynch is brilliant at capturing people’s disbelief and denial throughout the slow slide into totalitarianism. An urgent, important read."
— Justine Jordan, the Guardian (Booker round-up)
“With this stunning novel Paul Lynch has joined the ranks of Atwood, Orwell and Burgess.”
— Christine Dwyer Hickey, author of The Narrow Land
“Surely one of the most important novels of this decade”
— Ron Rash, author of Serena
“I haven't read a book that has shaken me so intensely in many years. The particular genius of this novel is that it makes the impossible possible... Prophet Song becomes a testament to a world unravelling. The comparisons are inevitable — Saramago, Orwell, McCarthy — but this novel will stand entirely on its own...“
— Colum McCann, author of Apeirogon
“A monumental novel, prose so flawless and flowing that reading it is akin to being taken up in a wave. You emerge dazed. You remember why fiction matters. It's hard to recall a more powerful novel in recent years.“
— Samantha Harvey, author of The Western Wind
“The work of a master novelist, Prophet Song is a stunning, midnight vision.”
— Rob Doyle, author of Threshold
“Part cautionary tale; part dystopian nightmare; part fever dream.
Prophet Song takes you to the edge of the chasm and insists that you
look down. A masterclass in terror and dread.“
— Alan McMonagle, author of Ithaca
“Gripping, chilling and terribly prescient — a novel with a darkly important message about this particular moment in time.“
— Sara Baume, author of Spill Simmer Falter Wither
“A mesmerising, shattering novel, Prophet Song lives and breathes on the page and lingers long after finishing it. A paean to maternal love amidst gathering forces of darkness, Paul Lynch has done something extraordinary. It is a work of wonder.“
— Lisa Harding, author of Bright Burning Things
“Paul Lynch is a writer of great vision and power and Prophet Song is his best book yet.“
— Laird Hunt, author of Zorrie
On a dark, wet evening in Dublin, scientist and mother-of-four Eilish Stack answers her front door to find the GNSB on her step. Two officers from Ireland’s newly formed secret police are here to interrogate her husband, a trade unionist.
Ireland is falling apart. The country is in the grip of a government turning towards tyranny and when her husband disappears, Eilish finds herself caught within the nightmare logic of a society that is quickly unravelling. How far will she go to save her family? And what – or who – is she willing to leave behind?
Exhilarating, terrifying and propulsive, Prophet Song is a work of breathtaking originality, offering a devastating vision of societal collapse and a deeply human portrait of a mother’s fight to hold her family together.
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