Paul Lynch discusses his Booker Prize-winning dystopian novel ‘Prophet Song’

This year’s Booker Prize winner is a dystopian novel about an Irish biologist and mother of four whose husband is taken by the government. NPR’s Scott Simon talks with Paul Lynch about “Prophet Song.”

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

Paul Lynch’s novel “Prophet Song” has just won the 2023 Booker Prize a few weeks ago. It’s set in modern Dublin, and there is an unnamed pandemic, an unspecified national emergency when one night Eilish, a biologist for a biotech company and mother of four, answers a knock at the door. Two police officers are looking for her husband, Larry, a leader in the teacher’s union. They say it’s nothing to worry about. But soon, Eilish finds herself in a world in which loved ones go missing. Co-workers are led away. People turn on water taps to avoid being overheard. And church bells ring out, but there seems to be no mercy. Paul Lynch joins us from Dublin. Thank you so much for being with us. And certainly, congratulations on winning the Booker.

PAUL LYNCH: Thank you, Scott. It’s a great pleasure to be here with you.

SIMON: Did you set out to write a story set in Syria?

LYNCH: It’s funny. My editor, Juliet Mabey at Oneworld has given out to me for having – says, you’ve produced at least three origin stories for this book. And I’ve laughed because the truth is you just don’t know – like, there’s so many things that nucleate around sort of core ideas in your subconscious. But the modern world was leaking in. And, you know, the book is set in Dublin, though. It’s a dream of a modern Ireland. It’s a sort of – maybe it’s a counterfactual Ireland. Perhaps it’s set in the future. I don’t specify that.

And there’s a reason why I don’t specify – is I’m allowing a space for the reader to sort of occupy, where I’m not identifying the background politics. That’s completely besides the point. I’m paying attention to the sort of – the beating heart of the moment, the sort of personal cost of events. I’m watching Eilish. I’m…