This year’s Booker Prize winning author has said the Dublin Riots do not mean his dystopian novel is coming true.
Paul Lynch's book Prophet Song depicts an Ireland governed by populists, where democracy looks increasingly fragile and media freedom is threatened.
Chair of Judges Esi Edugyan described the novel as “‘soul-shattering and true” and said anyone who reads it “will not soon forget its warnings”.
Speaking to The Pat Kenny Show, Mr Lynch said he expects the novel will spook many readers.
“When you enter the world of Prophet Song, it seems [like] the Dublin of now almost,” he said.
“I don’t say whether it’s set in the near future or whether it’s the counterfactual present - that’s up to the reader.
“What the reader is met with is the feeling of Ireland now but there are such differences.”
Since last week, many who have read the book have asked whether it foretold the violence on the streets of Dublin.
“I was in the queue at the South Bank Centre signing books on Thursday and a lady comes up to the top and she says, ‘Have you seen the news?’" Mr Lynch recalled.
“I said, ‘No, no, I haven’t, I’ve been wildly busy.’
“She said, ‘Your book is coming true.’”
Despite this, Mr Lynch describes Prophet Song as a work of fiction that is “not coming true” but added,“it doesn’t require a leap of imagination” to make a connection between last week’s events and the book.
“I’m a citizen in Ireland, I live in Dublin, it’s my hometown, this isn’t our city,” he said.
“I’m as upset about it as anyone else.”
Unexpected success
The winner of the Booker Prize receives £50,000 (€57,670) in prize money and Mr Lynch said the novel’s popularity has exceeded all his expectations.
“It’s kind of a dark book you might say,” he said.
“You kind of worry, ‘Will I sell any books if I write this book?’
“But we don’t have a choice, when you’re an artist or when you’re a writer – the books come to you and you sort of download them from whenever it is they come from, your intuition or whatever.
“You have to just take what’s given to you.”
Mr Lynch is the sixth Irish author to win the Booker Prize since its inception in 1978.
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Main image: Paul Lynch. Photo Steven May / Alamy Live News
