ISBN 9780861546862|Paperback|309 pages|2023|OneWorld
Prophet Song is a literary manifesto for empathy for those in need and a brilliant, haunting novel that should be placed into the hands of policymakers everywhere.
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Prophet Song, the Limerick-born Paul Lynch’s fifth novel imagines the Republic of Ireland slipping into totalitarianism after the rise of the rightwing National Alliance party which seizes total control in response to trade unionists lobbying for increased teachers’ wages. Civil liberties erode and civil war breaks out. Like a lobster in a boiling pot, people don’t realise their freedoms have been obliterated until it’s too late: “All your life you’ve been asleep, all of us sleeping and now the great waking begins.”
Lynch’s dystopian Ireland reflects the reality of war-torn countries, where refugees take to the sea to escape persecution on land. Prophet Song echoes the violence in Palestine, Ukraine and Syria, and the experience of all those who flee from war-torn countries. This is a story of bloodshed and heartache that strikes at the core of the inhumanity of western politicians’ responses to the refugee crisis.
Told without paragraph breaks, the book has a breathless, claustrophobic atmosphere. Free will and the meaning of liberty are pushed beyond their limits, eroding both to a state of near non-existence. It begins in Dublin as Larry, a senior trade unionist, is disappeared at a rally, leaving his wife, Eilish, to raise their four children. She must make impossible decisions to protect her family. In one heart-wrenching scene, she has to run across no man’s land to see her injured son at a hospital, risking execution by snipers shooting at civilians.
Lynch’s message is crystal clear: lives the world over are experiencing upheaval, violence, persecution. Prophet Song is a literary manifesto for empathy for those in need and a brilliant, haunting novel that should be placed into the hands of policymakers everywhere.
Paul Lynch is an Irish novelist known for his poetic, lyrical style and exploration of complex themes. He has published five novels and has won several awards, including the Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award.
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