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'A CRUCIAL BOOK FOR OUR CURRENT TIMES... BRILLIANTLY HAUNTING.' OBSERVER
The explosive literary sensation: a mother faces a terrible choice as Ireland slides into totalitarianism
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.
'A compassionate, propulsive and timely novel that forces the reader to imagine — what if this was me?' FT
Genre: Science Fiction
'A CRUCIAL BOOK FOR OUR CURRENT TIMES... BRILLIANTLY HAUNTING.' OBSERVER
The explosive literary sensation: a mother faces a terrible choice as Ireland slides into totalitarianism
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.
'A compassionate, propulsive and timely novel that forces the reader to imagine — what if this was me?' FT
Genre: Science Fiction
Praise for this book
"It was gripping and chilling, and terribly prescient - a novel with a darkly important message about this particular moment in time." - Sara Baume
"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
"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
"Monumental...It's hard to recall a more powerful novel in recent years." - Samantha Harvey
"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
"Paul Lynch is a writer of great vision and power and Prophet Song is his best novel yet." - Laird Hunt
"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
"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
"Surely one of the most important novels of this decade." - Ron Rash
"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
"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
"Monumental...It's hard to recall a more powerful novel in recent years." - Samantha Harvey
"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
"Paul Lynch is a writer of great vision and power and Prophet Song is his best novel yet." - Laird Hunt
"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
"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
"Surely one of the most important novels of this decade." - Ron Rash
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