Paul Lynch interviewed by Jake Kerridge

Irish novelist and winner of the 2023 Booker Prize Paul Lynch talks about his winning novel, Prophet Song, a deeply moving exploration of what happened to ordinary people caught up in terrible events.

The novel is set in an imagined Ireland teetering on the verge of collapse and controlled by a government descending into tyranny. Scientist Eilish Stack finds herself caught in a collapsing society after her husband, a trade union leader, mysteriously disappears. She faces some terrible choices of what or who she is prepared to sacrifice to save herself and her family.

‘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

‘Soul-shattering and true’ Esi Edugyan, chair of Booker Prize judges

Lynch is author of Beyond the Sea; Grace, winner of the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year; The Black Snow, winner of France’s bookseller prize, Prix Libr’à Nous for Best Foreign Novel; and Red Sky in Morning.

This event is part of the festival’s programme of Irish literature and culture.