Prophet Song (Paul Lynch)

Author: Paul Lynch
Published: 2023
Pages: 320
Prize: Man Booker Prize 2023 – Winner
Project: dystopia – government

 

 

 

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Prophet Song is a haunting and powerful novel set in a dystopian future where a totalitarian regime has taken control. The story follows a mother, her family, and their struggle for survival as they navigate a world of oppression and fear. Lynch’s poetic prose explores themes of resilience, love, and the human spirit’s capacity to endure in the face of tyranny.

Complexity

CEFR: B2/C1
Plot Complexity: moderate
Language Complexity: rich
Ideas Complexity: moderate

Blurb

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 Eilish can only watch helplessly as the world she knew disappears. When first her husband and then her eldest son vanish, Eilish finds herself caught within the nightmare logic of a collapsing society.

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.

 

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