Description

‘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

An Irish Times ‘Book to Look Forward to in 2023’

A fearless portrait of a society on the brink as a mother faces a terrible choice, from an internationally award-winning author

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.

Publisher Review

'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 'Surely one of the most important novels of this decade.' -- Ron Rash, author of Serena '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 'The work of a master novelist, Prophet Song is a stunning, midnight vision whose themes are at once ancient and all too timely: fear, complicity, resistance, and what becomes of us when hell rises to our homeland.' -- Rob Doyle, author of Threshold 'It was gripping and chilling, and terribly prescient - a novel with a darkly important message about this particular moment in time.' -- Sara Baume, author of Spill Simmer Falter Wither 'Part cautionary-tale; part dystopian-nightmare; part fever dream. Whichever way you skin it, there is no denying the gathering power of Paul Lynch's writing. This is at once fearless and affecting prose with a ticking clock inevitability and a clanging bell pay-off. Both urgent jolt and slow furnace, Prophet Song takes you to the edge of the chasm and insists that you look down. A masterclass in terror and dread.' -- Alan McMonagle, author of Ithaca 'Paul Lynch is a writer of great vision and power and Prophet Song is his best novel yet.' -- Laird Hunt, author of Zorrie 'Dublin's Paul Lynch has been a lynchpin of the Republic's internationally celebrated output for over 10 years, his profound investigations of place, identity, religion, and memory consistently compared to names as awesome as Dostoevsky, Heaney, Nabokov and Emily Dickinson. In his typically lyrical, lulling style, Lynch pulls off a masterstroke here, setting his futuristic story, of a nation made fearful and suspicious by their tyrannical government's surveillance, in the most familiar of settings, his home country. The chill, so close to home, is blood curdling.' -- The Big Issue 'A profoundly human story that brings to life the horror of living in a modern war zone. Deft, subtle and written in strikingly beautiful prose, with this stunning novel Paul Lynch has joined the ranks of Atwood, Orwell and Burgess.' -- Christine Dwyer Hickey, author of The Narrow Land 'A mesmerising, shattering novel, Prophet Song lives and breathes on the page and lingers long after finishing it. A paen to maternal love amidst gathering forces of darkness, Paul Lynch has done something extraordinary here. I felt as though I were experiencing the disassembling and terrifying restructuring of Eilish's world and am forever altered having entered it. The dream-like sensibility of the prose offsets the startling brutality of Eilish's plight. It is a work of wonder.' -- Lisa Harding, author of Bright Burning Things