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And the Winner Is…2023 Booker Prize Edition
Bookmakers in the U.K. were betting on one of the three Pauls — Harding, Lynch and Murray — to win this year’s Booker Prize (though Paul Lynch was favored by many). In an interview with the Booker Prize team prior to tonight’s announcement, Lynch said, “Prophet Song is partly an attempt at radical empathy. 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 2023 Booker Prize winner lands on U.S. shores on December 5.
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This is what Esi Edugyan, author of Washington Black and chair of judges for this year’s Booker Prize, says of Paul Lynch’s latest, a dystopian novel set in an all-too recognizable Ireland:
‘From that first knock at the door, Prophet Song forces us out of our complacency as we follow the terrifying plight of a woman seeking to protect her family in an Ireland descending into totalitarianism. We felt unsettled from the start, submerged in – and haunted by – the sustained claustrophobia of Lynch’s powerfully constructed world. He flinches from nothing, depicting the reality of state violence and displacement and offering no easy consolations.
‘Here the sentence is stretched to its limits – Lynch pulls off feats of language that are stunning to witness. He has the heart of a poet, using repetition and recurring motifs to create a visceral reading experience. This is a triumph of emotional storytelling, bracing and brave. With great vividness, Prophet Song captures the social and political anxieties of our current moment. Readers will find it soul-shattering and true, and will not soon forget its warnings.’