Prophet Song by Paul Lynch review – a tale of Dublin’s descent into dystopia is crucial reading
Aimée Walsh
Sun 3 Sep 2023 15.00 BST
I
f there was ever a crucial book for our current times, it’s Paul Lynch’s Prophet Song. The Limerick-born author’s fifth novel imagines the Republic of Ireland slipping into totalitarianism after the rise of the rightwing National Alliance party which seizes total control in response to trade unionists lobbying for increased teachers’ wages. Civil liberties erode and civil war breaks out. Like a lobster in a boiling pot, people don’t realise their freedoms have been obliterated until it’s too late: “All your life you’ve been asleep, all of us sleeping and now the great waking begins.”
