(London) Irish writer Paul Lynch won the Booker Prize for best fiction on Sunday with what the jury described as a “harrowing” novel about a woman’s fight to protect her family as Ireland descends into totalitarianism and war.
Updated yesterday at 6:41 p.m.
Jill Lawless Associated Press
Prophet Song, set in a fictional dystopian version of Dublin, received the £50,000 literary prize at a ceremony in London. Canadian writer Esi Edugyan, who chaired the jury, said the book was “a triumph of emotional, invigorating and courageous storytelling” in which Mr. Lynch “achieves feats of language that are astounding to read.”
Paul Lynch, 46, was the favorite to win the prestigious prize, which usually brings big increases in sales. Her book beat five other finalists from Ireland, the UK, the US and Canada, chosen from 163 novels submitted by publishers.
PHOTO KIN CHEUNG, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Paul Lynch, Chetna Maroo, Jonathan Escoffery, Sarah Bernstein, Paul Murray and Paul Harding
Mr. Lynch called Prophet Song, his fifth novel, an attempt at “radical empathy” that seeks to immerse readers in the experience of living in a collapsing society.
“I was trying to see what was happening in modern chaos,” he told Booker.
“The unrest in Western democracies. The problem of Syria: the implosion of an entire nation, the extent of the refugee crisis and the indifference of the West. “I wanted to immerse the reader so deeply in the book that by the end of the book they not only know this problem, but experience it themselves,” he continued.
The five judges met on Saturday to decide the winner, less than 48 hours after far-right violence erupted in Dublin following a knife attack on a group of children.
Ms. Edugyan clarified that immediate events had no direct impact on the selection of the winner. She said Mr. Lynch’s book “captures the social and political anxieties of our current moment” but also deals with “timeless” themes.
The other finalists were “The Bee Sting” by Irish writer Paul Murray; This Other Eden by American writer Paul Harding; Study on obedience by Canadian author Sarah Bernstein; If I Survive You by American writer Jonathan Escoffery; and Western Lane by British author Chetna Maroo.
PHOTO KIN CHEUNG, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Ms Edugyan said the selection of the winner was not unanimous but the jury meeting, which lasted six hours, was not acrimonious.
“Ultimately, we all felt that this was the book we wanted to present to the world and that it was truly a masterful work of fiction,” she commented.
Established in 1969, the Booker Prize is open to English-language novels from any country published in the United Kingdom and Ireland and has a reputation for transforming the careers of Booker Prize winners. Previous winners include Ian McEwan, Margaret Atwood, Salman Rushdie and Hilary Mantel.
Paul Lynch received his trophy from last year’s winner, Sri Lankan author Shehan Karunatilaka, at a ceremony at Old Billingsgate, a large old Victorian fish market in central London.
The evening included a speech by Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, an Anglo-Iranian imprisoned in Tehran for nearly six years until 2022, on charges of conspiring to overthrow the Iranian government – an accusation she, her supporters and group rights defenders denied.
She spoke about the books that sustained her in prison, including Ms. Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale,” set in an oppressive American theocracy.
“Books helped me find refuge in other people’s worlds when I couldn’t create one myself,” Ms. Zaghari-Ratcliffe said. They saved me by being one of the few tools I had, along with my imagination, to escape the walls [de la prison] from Evin without physically moving. »