Author sheds light on fiction, freedom and fear at SIBF

SHARJAH: When Paul Lynch walked onto the stage at the Sharjah International Book Fair 2025, the room was charged with anticipation.

- Gulf Today, Staff Reporter

The Irish author, whose novel Prophet Song won the 2023 Booker Prize, was there to talk about “Fiction, Freedom and Fear.” But what unfolded was a conversation about his writing process and the importance and relevance of storytelling in today's digital age.

Talking about his award-winning book, which has been translated into 41 languages, Lynch explained that it imagines a Western democracy sliding quietly into totalitarianism through the eyes of one woman, Eilish Stack, who struggles to hold her family together as her husband is arrested and her world begins to collapse.