The 2023 Booker Prize has been awarded to Prophet Song by Irish author Paul Lynch in the Fiction category. The 46-year-old author has won the prestigious fiction writing prize for the first time.
Set in Dublin, Prophet Song is inspired by the Syrian war and refugee crisis and tells the story of a family grappling with a new world where there's no democracy.
Reacting to his win on stage at the award ceremony that took place in Old Billingsgate, London, Lynch said, “It is with immense pleasure that I bring the Booker home to Ireland." He also said that Prophet Song wasn't an easy book to write.
Born in Limerick, Lynch now lives in Dublin. He was a chief film critic for Ireland's Sunday Tribune newspaper before becoming a full-time novelist. Lynch won the award competing against the five other finalists from Ireland, the US, the US, and Canada. The five final novels were selected from a pool of 163 novels submitted by publishers from across the world.
Prophet Song is Paul's fifth book which is praised for its 'soul shattering' portrayal of a woman's struggle to safeguard her family in the backdrop of a war. Lynch has been awarded the £50,000 (Rs 52,58,000) literary prize during the ceremony.
Canadian writer Esi Edugyan, who chaired the panel, described Prophet Song as “a triumph of emotional storytelling, bracing and brave.” She said the book “pulls of feats of language that are stunning to witness.”
Lynch published his first novel Red Sky in Morning in 2013. The book w as critically claimed and was Amazon he book of the year. Lynch was shortlisted for the Bord Gais Irish Books of the year in the same year.
The author received Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year Award in 2018 and was also shortlisted for The Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction and The William Saroyan Prize for International writing. In 2019, he was shortlisted for the Prix Litterature Monde, Prix Jean Monnet, and the Grand Prix de L'Heroine.
In the next year, Lynch was honoured with the Ireland Francophonie Ambassadors' Literary Award.
Last year, Shehan Karunatilaka won the Booker prize for The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, which is set on Sri Lankan civil war.
