Prophet Song

By: Paul Lynch

Narrated by: Gerry O'Brien

Winner of the Booker Prize 2023

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, 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.

How far will she go to save her family? And what – or who – is she willing to leave behind?

Exhilarating, terrifying and propulsive, Prophet Song is a work of breathtaking originality, offering a devastating vision of a country at war and a deeply human portrait of a mother’s fight to hold her family together.

2023, Booker Prize, Winner

2023, An Post Irish Book Awards Novel of the Year, Short-listed

2025, Dublin Literary Award, Long-listed

©2023 Paul Lynch (P)2023 Bolinda Publishing

Critic reviews

'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, author of Apeirogon)

'Monumental ... You remember why fiction matters. It's hard to recall a more powerful novel in recent years.' (Samantha Harvey, author of The Western Wind)

'Prophet Song is a literary manifesto for empathy for those in need and a brilliant, haunting novel that should be placed into the hands of policymakers everywhere.' (The Guardian)

generic autocracy

Welcome to Dystopia. Without context one dystopia is as good as another. Some, ANY, context would lend believability to the story. And Ireland!! For gods sake, anywhere but Ireland. Just doesn't ring true. Critics laud the absence of a back story claiming that this nasty autocratic, villainous government could apply to any nasty villainous government anywhere. That's the problem!
The writing is also marred by "overmetaphorization". If one metaphor is good then two or three is better. Every item is encrusted with frilly prose which is distracting and slows the pace of the narrative

Timely

Took me to the darkness that I pray we never reach in this country. An important read for those who believe it can’t happen.

How adeptly the reader handled the author’s style of writing to convey so perfectly this amazing novel.

Loved every inch of this most amazing novel. It’s an utter masterpiece and I could not stop reading/listening.

Epic/

The creative use of language served as an emotional hook. It was a universal story that hit home especially in these precarious political days.

Superior novel, masterly written, hugely insightful

The masterful writing and insight into humanity. It is small wonder this book won the Booker Prize.