LONDON: Irish writer Paul Lynch gained the 2023 Booker Prize for fiction on Sunday for his novel “Prophet Track,” a dystopian work about an Eire that descends into tyranny.
The 46-year-old pipped 5 different shortlisted novelists to the celebrated award at a ceremony in London.
He turns into the fifth Irish author to win the high-profile literary prize, which has propelled to fame numerous family names, together with previous winners Salman Rushdie, Margaret Atwood and Hilary Mantel.
“This was not a straightforward ebook to write down,” Lynch mentioned after accumulating his award, which comes with £50,000 (round $63,000) and an enormous increase to his profile.
“The rational a part of me believed I used to be dooming my profession by scripting this novel. Although I needed to write the ebook anyway. We wouldn’t have a selection in such issues,” he added.
Lynch’s ebook is about in Dublin in a close to future model of Eire. It follows the struggles of a mom of 4 as she tries to avoid wasting her household from totalitarianism.
There aren’t any paragraph breaks within the novel, which is Lynch’s fifth.
Canadian novelist Esi Edugyan, who chaired the five-person judging panel, known as the story “a triumph of emotional storytelling, bracing and courageous”.
“With nice vividness, Prophet Track captures the social and political anxieties of our present second,” she mentioned.
“Readers will discover it soul-shattering and true, and won’t quickly overlook its warnings.”
The Booker is open to works of fiction by writers of any nationality, written in English and printed within the UK or Eire between October 1, 2022, and September 30, 2023.
– Murdoch, Doyle –
None of this yr’s six finalists — which included two People, a Canadian, a Kenyan and one other Irish writer — had been shortlisted earlier than and just one had beforehand been longlisted.
The shortlisted novels, introduced in September, have been chosen from a 13-strong longlist that had been whittled down from an preliminary 158 works.
Amongst them was Irish writer Paul Murray’s “The Bee Sting”, a tragicomic saga which seems to be on the position of destiny within the travails of 1 household.
Murray was beforehand longlisted in 2010.
Kenyan author Chetna Maroo’s transferring debut novel “Western Lane” about grief and sisterhood follows the story of a teenage woman for whom squash is life.
The judges additionally chosen “If I Survive You” by US author Jonathan Escoffery, which follows a Jamaican household and their chaotic new life in Miami.
He was joined by fellow American writer, Paul Harding, whose “This Different Eden” — impressed by historic occasions — tells the story of Apple Island, an enclave off the US coast the place society’s misfits flock and construct a brand new house.
Canada was represented on the shortlist within the form of “Research for Obedience” by Sarah Bernstein. The unsettling novel explores the themes of prejudice and guilt via a suspicious narrator.
The Booker was first awarded in 1969. Final yr’s winner was Sri Lankan author Shehan Karunatilaka for “The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida”.
The earlier Irish winners are Iris Murdoch, John Banville, Roddy Doyle and Anne Enright.
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