2024 Kirkus Prize for Fiction (finalist)
2023 Booker Prize
WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE 2023
WINNER OF THE 2024 DAYTON LITERARY PEACE PRIZE * SHORTLISTED FOR THE AN POST IRISH BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023 * SHORTLISTED FOR THE STREGA EUROPEAN PRIZE
A SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
A NEW YORK TIMES EDITOR'S CHOICE
AN AMAZON TOP 10 BOOK OF DECEMBER 2023
A Book of the Year for 2023 according to the Guardian, FT, Irish Independent, Irish Examiner, Sunday Independent, Economist, Big Issue, Daily Telegraph, Irish Times and Waterstones
'A CRUCIAL BOOK FOR OUR CURRENT TIMES... BRILLIANTLY HAUNTING.' OBSERVER
The explosive literary sensation: a mother faces a terrible choice as Ireland slides into totalitarianism
On a dark, wet evening in Dublin, scientist and mother-of-four Eilish Stack answers her front door to find the GNSB on her step. Two officers from Ireland’s newly formed secret police are here to interrogate her husband, Larry, a trade unionist.
Ireland is falling apart. The country is in the grip of a government turning towards tyranny and when her husband disappears, Eilish finds herself caught within the nightmare logic of a society that is quickly unravelling. Soon, she must decide just how far she is willing to go to keep her family safe.
Exhilarating, terrifying and propulsive, Paul Lynch's Booker Prize-winningnovelis a devastating vision of a country falling apart and a moving portrait of the resilience of the human spirit when faced with the darkest of times.
'A compassionate, propulsive and timely novel that forces the reader to imagine — what if this was me?' FT
Genre: Science Fiction
WINNER OF THE 2024 DAYTON LITERARY PEACE PRIZE * SHORTLISTED FOR THE AN POST IRISH BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023 * SHORTLISTED FOR THE STREGA EUROPEAN PRIZE
A SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
A NEW YORK TIMES EDITOR'S CHOICE
AN AMAZON TOP 10 BOOK OF DECEMBER 2023
A Book of the Year for 2023 according to the Guardian, FT, Irish Independent, Irish Examiner, Sunday Independent, Economist, Big Issue, Daily Telegraph, Irish Times and Waterstones
'A CRUCIAL BOOK FOR OUR CURRENT TIMES... BRILLIANTLY HAUNTING.' OBSERVER
The explosive literary sensation: a mother faces a terrible choice as Ireland slides into totalitarianism
On a dark, wet evening in Dublin, scientist and mother-of-four Eilish Stack answers her front door to find the GNSB on her step. Two officers from Ireland’s newly formed secret police are here to interrogate her husband, Larry, a trade unionist.
Ireland is falling apart. The country is in the grip of a government turning towards tyranny and when her husband disappears, Eilish finds herself caught within the nightmare logic of a society that is quickly unravelling. Soon, she must decide just how far she is willing to go to keep her family safe.
Exhilarating, terrifying and propulsive, Paul Lynch's Booker Prize-winningnovelis a devastating vision of a country falling apart and a moving portrait of the resilience of the human spirit when faced with the darkest of times.
'A compassionate, propulsive and timely novel that forces the reader to imagine — what if this was me?' FT
Genre: Science Fiction
Praise for this book
"It was gripping and chilling, and terribly prescient - a novel with a darkly important message about this particular moment in time." - Sara Baume
"The work of a master novelist, Prophet Song is a stunning, midnight vision whose themes are at once ancient and all too timely: fear, complicity, resistance, and what becomes of us when hell rises to our homeland." - Rob Doyle
"A mesmerising, shattering novel, Prophet Song lives and breathes on the page and lingers long after finishing it. A paen to maternal love amidst gathering forces of darkness, Paul Lynch has done something extraordinary here. I felt as though I were experiencing the disassembling and terrifying restructuring of Eilish's world and am forever altered having entered it. The dream-like sensibility of the prose offsets the startling brutality of Eilish's plight. It is a work of wonder." - Lisa Harding
"Monumental...It's hard to recall a more powerful novel in recent years." - Samantha Harvey
"A profoundly human story that brings to life the horror of living in a modern war zone. Deft, subtle and written in strikingly beautiful prose, with this stunning novel Paul Lynch has joined the ranks of Atwood, Orwell and Burgess." - Christine Dwyer Hickey
"Paul Lynch is a writer of great vision and power and Prophet Song is his best novel yet." - Laird Hunt
"I haven't read a book that has shaken me so intensely in many years... The comparisons are inevitable - Saramago, Orwell, McCarthy - but this novel will stand entirely on its own." - Colum McCann
"Part cautionary-tale; part dystopian-nightmare; part fever dream. Whichever way you skin it, there is no denying the gathering power of Paul Lynch's writing. This is at once fearless and affecting prose with a ticking clock inevitability and a clanging bell pay-off. Both urgent jolt and slow furnace, Prophet Song takes you to the edge of the chasm and insists that you look down. A masterclass in terror and dread." - Alan McMonagle
"Surely one of the most important novels of this decade." - Ron Rash
"The work of a master novelist, Prophet Song is a stunning, midnight vision whose themes are at once ancient and all too timely: fear, complicity, resistance, and what becomes of us when hell rises to our homeland." - Rob Doyle
"A mesmerising, shattering novel, Prophet Song lives and breathes on the page and lingers long after finishing it. A paen to maternal love amidst gathering forces of darkness, Paul Lynch has done something extraordinary here. I felt as though I were experiencing the disassembling and terrifying restructuring of Eilish's world and am forever altered having entered it. The dream-like sensibility of the prose offsets the startling brutality of Eilish's plight. It is a work of wonder." - Lisa Harding
"Monumental...It's hard to recall a more powerful novel in recent years." - Samantha Harvey
"A profoundly human story that brings to life the horror of living in a modern war zone. Deft, subtle and written in strikingly beautiful prose, with this stunning novel Paul Lynch has joined the ranks of Atwood, Orwell and Burgess." - Christine Dwyer Hickey
"Paul Lynch is a writer of great vision and power and Prophet Song is his best novel yet." - Laird Hunt
"I haven't read a book that has shaken me so intensely in many years... The comparisons are inevitable - Saramago, Orwell, McCarthy - but this novel will stand entirely on its own." - Colum McCann
"Part cautionary-tale; part dystopian-nightmare; part fever dream. Whichever way you skin it, there is no denying the gathering power of Paul Lynch's writing. This is at once fearless and affecting prose with a ticking clock inevitability and a clanging bell pay-off. Both urgent jolt and slow furnace, Prophet Song takes you to the edge of the chasm and insists that you look down. A masterclass in terror and dread." - Alan McMonagle
"Surely one of the most important novels of this decade." - Ron Rash
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