‘Sliding out of my grasp’ – Booker winner Paul Lynch says he will use £50,000 prize money to pay mortgage

Irish Booker prize winner Paul Lynch has said he was “astonished” by violent disturbances on the streets of Dublin last week, but this kind of behaviour is “always under the surface”.

The author, who lives in Dublin, spoke at a Sunday press conference after he received the award during a ceremony at Old Billingsgate, London.

His dystopian fifth novel Prophet Song explores what happens when his home country slides into authoritarianism.

When asked what he thought about the riots in Dublin, which involved right-wing elements, Lynch said: “Like everybody else, I was astonished by it.

“And at the same time, I recognise the truth that this kind of energy is always there under the surface and, I didn’t write this book to specifically say, ‘here’s a warning’, I wrote the book to articulate the message that the things that are in this book are occurring timelessly throughout the ages.

“And maybe we need to deepen our own responses to that kind of idea. But at the same time, what was happening in Dublin? Well, you know, we can see it as a warning, I think we should see it was a warning.”

Lynch also said he was “distinctly not a political novelist” and his book is really about “grief”, as it tells the story of a woman who has her husband taken away by the newly formed Irish secret police.

He also said that “Ireland is an extraordinary country to live in” and a welcoming country.

Lynch added: “It’s a great place for writers, any country that supports writers in the way that the Arts Council has supported me and many other really truly worthy Irish writers can only be a great place to live.

“So I could not be more proud to be an Irish writer right now, it’s really something.

“Well, you know, I think that if any of us were to look at the state of affairs from the point of view of 20 years ago, we couldn’t quite believe the modern world that we find ourselves in.

“And I do think that you looked at things objectively, there is a sense of unravelling of a kind.

“The question is, is what are we going to do about it and can anything be done about it?

“I mean, Prophet Song is a counterfactual novel, it’s not a prophetic statement but there are resonances in it that are there for the taking for readers who want to think about these things.”

He also said that “there’s layers and layers at work in my writing” and novels are complex.

Lynch added: “To reduce the book down to one single message is actually pointless to a certain extent and goes against, the reason why I wrote the book, the book is actually its own answer.”

He also said he was most likely to spend half of the prize, worth £50,000, on his mortgage.

Lynch also said that before writing full time he had reached a point in his life where he had “exhausted all the possibilities”.

He added: “There was a moment writing this book during lockdown, it was hugely challenging. I had long Covid for periods, and I’d wake up many days and I would have had just like, brain fog, and I had just, like, just fatigue, and I couldn’t work.”

Speaking this morning on BBC Radio 4, the writer, who was born in Limerick and grew up in Donegal, said: “The book is also simulating events that have already been occurring, that are occurring, that have occurred in the past, that will occur in the future.

“It is tapping and seeking out universals.

“It got very strange because there are sequences in the book where the state control begins to grip and there are curfews.

“I had already written these sequences and so I found myself living through them (in the pandemic).”

Canadian novelist Esi Edugyan, chairwoman of the 2023 judges and a previous Booker-shortlisted author, said at the awards ceremony in London that Prophet Song captured the “social and political anxieties of our current moment”, adding that readers would not “forget its warnings”.

But speaking on Monday, Lynch insisted he was not a “political novelist”.

The 46-year-old, who lives in Dublin, said: “No, it’s not (a political book) and I find myself being shaped into a political novelist now.

“It’s something I was deeply aware of when I was writing the book – there are serious pitfalls if you are setting out as a writer to air a grievance.

“I think the work of the serious novelist is about grief and so this book arrives at a place where it has moral weight.

“The things that I’m interested in are the problems that the characters face – which are to do with life and death … the known world disappearing.

“Many of us would say that we are living in some kind of unravelling – the question is where does this lead to down the road? It’s one of the things I’m exploring.”

Lynch also said he would use the £50,000 prize money to pay off his mortgage, which he said was “sliding away out of my grasp”.

This year, he beat fellow Irish writer Paul Murray, who was shortlisted for The Bee Sting, which follows an Irish family facing financial and emotional troubles.

All of the shortlisted authors – including British author Chetna Maroo, American novelist Jonathan Escoffery, Canadian author Sarah Bernstein and US author Paul Harding – received £2,500 and a bespoke bound edition of their book.

Margaret Atwood, Dame Hilary Mantel and Sir Salman Rushdie are among previous Booker winners.

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