'Ukraine... Israel-Gaza conflict... Prophet Song anticipates this'

[Collection]Irish writer Paul Lynch, winner of the £50,000 Booker Prize 2023 for his dystopian novel Prophet Song, expresses disbelief and compares his win to a counterfactual narrative. The novel envisions a totalitarian Ireland and explores the idea that the end of the world affects communities. In his acceptance speech, Lynch quotes the apocryphal gospels and discusses the theme of free will in his novels, focusing on the individual's search for meaning amidst external forces that shape their lives.