2023 Booker prize winning novel by Paul Lynch
Published by Oneworld

The internationally acclaimed Irish writer won the most prized award in the book world – The Booker Prize, for 2023, for his novel Prophet Song.

The book portrays a imaginary dystopian world in Ireland, which is taken over by a far-right wing government. It may seem far fetched to think something like this happening in present day Ireland. But it may not be so to people who closely follow events in the country, and Europe in general. There is a right wing party in every society today, no matter which part of the world. And the more scary part is they are gaining more listening ears and acceptance by the day.

The book follows the story of a mother of four children – Eilish Stack, who is confronted at her doorstep one day by the national security guards, seeking her husband; who later disappears. The story is engagingly told from Eilish’s perspective and brilliantly keeps the readers gripped throughout the book.

Here is what Lorainne Berry had to say in the concluding part of her article, reviewing this book, in Los Angeles Times.

Through Eilish, the author exposes us for the back-seat drivers we are — and implicitly asks what we plan to do if the improbable becomes the inevitable. “History is a silent record of people who could not leave,” Eilish says, “it is a record of those who did not have a choice, you cannot leave when you have nowhere to go and have not the means to go there, you cannot leave when your children cannot get a passport, cannot go when your feet are rooted in the earth and to leave means tearing off your feet.”

This is not a book that presents political oppression as an intellectual problem to be anticipated or solved. It aims for the limbic system, and it does not miss.

Read the full article here.