You are viewing your 1 free article this month. Login to read more articles.
Oneworld has acquired a third novel from award-winning Irish novelist Paul Lynch, winner of the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year in 2018 for Grace.
Publisher Juliet Mabey bought UK and Commonwealth rights, including audio and serial but excluding Canada, to Prophet Song, from Simon Trewin, in an exclusive submission. It will be published in September 2023 as a superlead title on Oneworld’s literary fiction imprint and published by Albin Michel in France.
The synopsis reads: “Prophet Song opens in a Dublin much like the city we know, but here Ireland is falling apart; the government is swiftly morphing into a tyrannical regime. Caught in the vortex of a society unravelling around her is Eisish Stack, who is first confronted by the newly formed secret police seeking her husband, a trade unionist, for questioning. This is an ambitious, highly original exploration of how democratic societies might descend into autocracy and civil war, with a nod to contemporary crises such as Syria and Ukraine.”
Mabey said: “Paul is one of the most distinctive writers of his generation. This is his fifth novel, and the third to be published by Oneworld, and each offers a fantastically original literary gem. Early praise is already coming in from writers such as Samantha Harvey, who described Prophet Song as ‘a monumental novel, with prose so flawless and flowing that reading it is akin to being taken up in a wave’. We’re all hugely excited to be publishing this phenomenal novel from a wordsmith who is always pushing the boundaries and breaking new ground, whether of plot or language.”
Lynch commented: “It is a great pleasure to be published again by Juliet Mabey and her team at Oneworld, and exciting to have a new novel out this year. It’s been four years since Beyond the Sea and like that novel, Prophet Song pushes me into new terrain – a dystopian novel of sorts that seeks to do new things with the form.”