Paul Lynch makes a very welcome return to the CCI having won the 2023 Booker Prize for his fifth novel Prophet Song. Set in an imagined Ireland that is descending into tyranny, the judging chair Esi Edugyan described it as a “soul-shattering and true” novel that “captures the social and political anxieties of our current moment”. Centring on the plight of a middle-class Irish family, it has now been translated into thirty languages and was published in French by Albin Michel at the beginning of 2025. Attacks on civil liberties, fanaticism, complacency, war… the numerous themes Paul Lynch touches upon set the scene for a riveting discussion tonight between the author and eminent journalist Lara Marlowe.

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