The Booker Prize 2023 has been awarded to Paul Lynch for his novel Prophet Song. Lynch, an internationally acclaimed Irish novelist who has published five novels, was presented with his trophy by Shehan Karunatilaka, the 2022 winner, at a ceremony held at London on 26th November 2023. The Booker Prize comes with £50,000 (Rs 52,60,286).

The Booker Prizes describe Prophet Song as “an exhilarating, propulsive and confrontational portrait of a country – and an ordinary family – on the brink of catastrophe.

On a dark, wet evening in Dublin, scientist and mother-of-four Eilish Stack answers her front door to find the GNSB on her doorstep. Two officers from Ireland’s newly formed secret police want to speak with her husband…

Things are falling apart. Ireland is in the grip of a government that is taking a turn towards tyranny. And as the blood-dimmed tide is loosed, Eilish finds herself caught within the nightmare logic of a collapsing society – assailed by unpredictable forces beyond her control and forced to do whatever it takes to keep her family together.”

Esi Edugyan, Chair of judges of Booker Prize 2023, said: ‘From that first knock at the door, Prophet Song forces us out of our complacency as we follow the terrifying plight of a woman seeking to protect her family in an Ireland descending into totalitarianism. We felt unsettled from the start, submerged in – and haunted by – the sustained claustrophobia of Lynch’s powerfully constructed world. He flinches from nothing, depicting the reality of state violence and displacement and offering no easy consolations.

‘Here the sentence is stretched to its limits – Lynch pulls off feats of language that are stunning to witness. He has the heart of a poet, using repetition and recurring motifs to create a visceral reading experience. This is a triumph of emotional storytelling, bracing and brave. With great vividness, Prophet Song captures the social and political anxieties of our current moment. Readers will find it soul-shattering and true, and will not soon forget its warnings.’

The other books shortlist for the 2023 Booker Prize were Study for Obedience by Sarah Bernstein (Granta Books); If I Survive You by Jonathan Escoffery (4th Estate); This Other Eden by Paul Harding (Hutchinson Heinemann); Western Lane by Chetna Maroo (Picador); The Bee Sting by Paul Murray (Hamish Hamilton).

(Source: The Booker Prizes)