Irish author Paul Lynch wins 2023 Booker Prize

Irish author Paul Lynch won the 2023 Booker Prize for fiction on Sunday. He bagged the award for his novel "Prophet Song," a dystopian work about an Ireland that descends into tyranny.

The 46-year-old pipped five other shortlisted novelists to the prestigious award at a ceremony in London. He becomes the fifth Irish writer to win the high-profile literary prize. It has propelled to fame countless household names, including past winners Salman Rushdie, Margaret Atwood and Hilary Mantel.

"This was not an easy book to write," Lynch said after collecting his award, which comes with £50,000 (around $63,000) and a huge boost to his profile. "The rational part of me believed I was dooming my career by writing this novel. Though I had to write the book anyway. We do not have a choice in such matters," the author added.

Lynch's book is set in Dublin in a near future version of Ireland. It follows the struggles of a mother of four as she tries to save her family from totalitarianism. There are no paragraph breaks in the novel, which is Lynch's fifth.

Canadian novelist Esi Edugyan, who chaired the five-person judging panel, called the story "a triumph of emotional storytelling, bracing and brave". "With great vividness, Prophet Song captures the social and political anxieties of our current moment," she said.

The Booker is open to works of fiction by writers of any nationality, written in English and published in the UK or Ireland between October 1, 2022, and September 30, 2023.