Paul Lynch shortlisted for 2025 Dublin Literary Award

Irish author Paul Lynch has been shortlisted for the 2025 Dublin Literary Award for his novel Prophet Song.

Lynch's novel explores the breakdown in civil and democratic values in a dystopian, future Ireland. It was published in 2023 and won that year's Booker Prize.

The shortlist includes five more novels: Selva Amada's Not a River (translated by Annie McDermot), Gerda Blees' We Are Light (translated by Michele Hutchison), Michael Crummey's The Adversary, Percival Everett's James, and Daniel Mason's North Woods.

The award offers €100,000 to its winner, and is known for its policy of dividing the prize if the novel has been translated, in which case the author receives €75,000 and the translator €25,000.

Aside from Lynch, the shortlist comprises two American authors, one Canadian, one Argentinian, and one Dutch. Their books have been selected out of 71 nominated works by a six-member, international judge panel who will ultimately decide the winner.

The results will be announced by Lord Mayor of Dublin Emma Blain on Thursday, May 22, as part of International Literature Festival Dublin (ILFD).

Paul Lynch is a Limerick-native author. He won France's Prix Libr'à Nous in 2016 for his novel The Black Snow, and the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year award in 2018 for Grace, a novel about the Irish famine, among other accolades.

The Dublin Literary Award marks its 30th edition this year. Nominations for the prize are submitted by librarians and readers from a network of libraries around the world.