Prophet's Song wins the 2023 Booker Prize for Paul Lynch of Ireland

 Prophet's Song wins the 2023 Booker Prize for Paul Lynch of Ireland

The Prophet's Song, a dystopian novel about an Ireland under totalitarian rule, has won the 2023 Booker Prize.

The 46-year-old Irish author Paul Lynch received the renowned fiction writing prize for the first time with this work.

The novel, which is set in Dublin, follows a family as they struggle to adapt to a horrifying new world where the democratic principles they are used to start to fade.

Lynch said that the Syrian conflict and refugee situation served the inspiration for Prophet Song.

On stage at the Old Billingsgate awards event in London, Lynch reacted to his triumph by calling it "extremely great" that he would be returning to Ireland with the Booker.

Born in Limerick and now residing in Dublin, the novel's author said that it "was not an easy book to write".

In response to a question on the recent rioting and violence in Dublin earlier this week, Lynch said that he was "appalled" by the events and that "we should see this as a warning".

However, he clarified that his work was completed eighteen months before and that he was not a "political novelist".

He said that he will pay off his mortgage with a portion of his £50,000 prize money.

Lynch worked on this novel for four years, making it his sixth book overall. By the time he completed writing it, his son had learned how to ride a bike, having begun soon before his kid's birth.

The panel, according to Chief Judge Esi Edugyan, was looking for "a winning novel that can speak to the immediate moment as well as its long-term potential".

He said, "In these difficult times, we sought a novel with a guiding vision – a book that would remind us that we are more than ourselves, remind us of all that is worth saving."

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe discussed how reading had aided her throughout her incarceration in Iran prior to the winner being declared.

He said that being able to read literature from the prison's hidden library transported him "to another world" and "changed" his life.

Additional candidates included:

Paul Murray's Bee Sting

Chetna Maru's Western Lane

Paul Harding's An Other Eden

Written by Jonathan Escoffery, If I Survive You

Research on Compliance by Sarah Bernstein

One of the most important literary honors in the English-speaking world is the Booker Prize.

Salman Rushdie, Bernardine Evaristo, Margaret Atwood, and Hilary Mantel are among the writers who have won before.