In his book Songs of the Prophets, which won the Booker Prize in 2023, Paul Lynch writes about Ireland's descent into authoritarianism and civil war. Although the book appears to send a strong political message, the Irish author believes: If they think their job is to send a message, their job probably won't be taken seriously. I think if you sit down and write a message, you're doing a political thing and you're no longer a serious writer. ”
At the recently concluded Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 Series Jaipur Literature Festival, writers spoke about FE and how they view their books in the current global context, why they wrote with such a premise, and why. Are his books missing paragraphs, quotes, and more? Edited excerpt:
You are the fifth Irish writer to win the Booker Prize. In 2023 itself, four Irish writers were shortlisted for the award. What is it about Ireland's literary world that allows a country of just five million people to produce such high quality work?
There's a lot of energy in Irish writing right now, but it would take us about 50 years to understand the reasons behind it.
But one thing that is less talked about is that Ireland is breaking away from the theocratic control of the Catholic Church. In other words, society has generally become post-Catholic. My generation and the generations that followed are re-identifying themselves and reinterpreting what it means to be Irish and what it means to communicate in the context of the world. . Because Ireland is now the center of the world. It is an essential part of a globalized world. Now our novelists are looking outward.
At the same time, the Irish government is very supportive of writers. The tax-free limit is 50,000 euros. So, if you keep your overhead costs low, you can become a full-time writer. And this is important because it means you can shape your brain to suit your work and produce your best writing without distractions. I have to put up with work and spend time in the evening writing.
So investing in the arts is paying off.
In his Booker Prize-winning novel, Songs of the Prophets, Ireland descends into authoritarianism and a civil war ensues. What inspired you to take up this topic?
If you're looking for an origin story, you won't find it. However, in 2018, when I started writing this book, rifts were appearing in the political landscape in the West. Trump, Brexit, the Syrian crisis: the world we had known for years was beginning to erode. Millions of refugees left their countries, and Europe began to shift to the right in response. In response to the biggest refugee crisis since World War II, a type of xenophobic nationalism began to emerge. I started thinking about how we responded to this and what this might lead to. It's modern chaos and I'm just trying to see it through and this is what I'm trying to write about.
Many people call your book a dystopian novel, but you don't call it a dystopian novel. why?
Whether it's Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale or George Orwell's 1984, they convey very specific political messages. “Prophet Song” does the same thing, and I'm not sure if it's accurate, but it does give it a sense of realism. On the other hand, in a dystopia, we cannot read such everyday, realistic things. Also, a work of fiction becomes less speculative when what happens in the book happens somewhere else in the world. This is exactly the case with Prophet Song. Therefore, it cannot be dystopian.
When I was in London, a woman from Ukraine came up to me and said, “You told my story.” And a person from Palestine said, “You told my story,” and when I was writing, I didn't have Ukraine or Gaza in mind.
What do you think of your book in light of the right-wing nationalism spreading in several countries and the wars in Ukraine and Gaza? Also, how many times has fiction failed to wake people up to this reality? Do you think?
I think novelists need to be careful. If they think it's their job to send messages, the job will probably fail as a serious job. I don't think you're a serious writer anymore because if you sit down and write a message, you're doing a political act, and a serious novel should talk about the complexities of modern life. But at the same time, the result of the novel can be more valuable.
Prophet songs seem to speak to the times in which we live as citizens. As we look around us, we see a generation emerging that favors ideas of authoritarianism and fascism. I think the purpose of this book is to remind us what the inevitable consequences of these ideologies are.
Your book has no paragraphs or quotation marks. why?
When you start writing a novel, the first thing you think about is form, the invisible mesh that holds everything together. Therefore, the decisions you make help define the meaning of the book. One thing I realized was that this book didn't need paragraphs. I began to understand that the feeling of being caught up in Eilish, with no room to turn, no room to breathe, was claustrophobic. The reader feels trapped within the text, just as Eilish is trapped within the unfolding reality. So the format of the book needs to satisfy that feeling.
