Tomás Ó Flatharta

Source : Prophet Song The Grim Booker

The evening of 23 November 2023 in Dublin saw a mixture of racist protest fuelled by the far right and “riots” by marginalised youth taking what they could from stores, for which they will be punished. The alarm at the potent combination of populist rage and popular resentment was palpable (I arrived on Friday afternoon and heard accounts of what had gone on), and that Saturday’s Palestine solidarity march (which I had planned to attend) was postponed for a week.

On the Sunday evening this year’s Booker Prize was announced, Paul Lynch’s Prophet Song (Oneworld, 2023). Some enthusiasts for the book are treating it as prophecy, and it does trace a downward spiral into chaos that engulfs the south of Ireland after the election of a “National Alliance Party”.

Austerity and reaction

There has been plenty of speculation in Ireland and abroad about how Lynch touches nerves about austerity and reaction, and warnings about plot spoilers now are hardly necessary. You know what is coming before you open the book.