Which author won the Booker Prize in 2023 for 'Prophet Song'?

Paul Lynch won the Booker Prize in 2023 for his novel “Prophet Song.”

The Irish dystopian novel follows Eilish Stack, a mother trying to protect her family as the Republic of Ireland slides into authoritarian rule. Its imagined political crisis draws on real-world events, including the Syrian Civil War, the refugee crisis and the failure of outside powers to respond to suffering.

Lynch’s style is deliberately unsettling: the novel uses long, flowing sentences, minimal paragraph breaks and dialogue without quotation marks. These choices place readers inside Eilish’s increasingly chaotic experience rather than presenting the crisis from a comfortable distance.

“Prophet Song” was published by Oneworld in 2023. Lynch became the sixth Irish writer to win the Booker, following earlier Irish winners including John Banville, Roddy Doyle and Anne Enright.