Prophet Song

　　2023布克獎決選
 
　　架空的愛爾蘭之下，全新的反烏托邦作品
　　一個母親如何對抗暴政的控制，奮力保護家庭的最動人模樣
 
　　分子生物學家Eilish Stack和身為工會會員的丈夫Larry，與他們的四個孩子共同安居在都柏林。原本平靜的生活，卻在這天晚上風雲變色。
 
　　漆黑而潮濕的這個夜晚，兩名男子找上門，自稱是愛爾蘭新成立的秘密警察，要來找她的丈夫Larry。然而不久後，Larry卻在新執政黨最新通過的法案下，被判處拘留，Eilish完全聯絡不到他。而職場上的氛圍，大家也開始默默往執政黨立場靠攏，新政府控制住了所有媒體和司法部門。而在此情況下，Eilish家的大兒子竟收到了兵單，為避免讓兒子站到前線，Eilish試圖將他送往北愛爾蘭，但大兒子卻決定加入革命軍，就此下落不明。家中剩下她和十幾歲的女兒們、以及失智病徵日益嚴重的老父親。當內戰即將到來，Eilish終於獲得趁亂逃往加拿大姊姊住所的機會，但她放不下失聯的丈夫和大兒子。為求安全脫身，家人之間該如何取捨，Eilish要走多遠？該放掉些什麼⋯⋯或是說誰呢？
 
　　作者詳盡地描繪了一個國家在戰爭下的百目瘡痍，並深刻一位母親為自己所愛而奮鬥不懈的景象。(文／博客來外文館)

WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE 2023 - NATIONAL BESTSELLER

On a dark, wet evening in Dublin, scientist and mother-of-four Eilish Stack answers her front door to find two officers from Ireland’s newly formed secret police on her step. They have arrived to interrogate her husband, a trade unionist.

Ireland is falling apart, caught in the grip of a government turning towards tyranny. As the life she knows and the ones she loves disappear before her eyes, Eilish must contend with the dystopian logic of her new, unraveling country. How far will she go to save her family? And what--or who--is she willing to leave behind?

The winner of the Booker Prize 2023 and a critically acclaimed national bestseller, Prophet Song presents a terrifying and shocking vision of a country sliding into authoritarianism and a deeply human portrait of a mother’s fight to hold her family together.

Paul Lynch is the author of the novels Red Sky in Morning, The Black Snow, Grace, and Beyond the Sea. Grace won the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year 2018 and was shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction and the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing 2018. The Black Snow won France’s Prix Libr’à Nous for Best Foreign Novel and was a finalist for the Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger (Best Foreign Book Prize). He lives in Dublin with his wife and two children. His website is www.paullynchwriter.com.