Paul Lynch’s novel Propht Song won the 2023 Booker Prize. The story is set in a near future Ireland, post pandemic, an ultra right wing government comes into power, the new rule of law tramples on common civil rights that were thought to be entrenched and untouchable. Lisa Allardice interviewing Lynch for The Guardian writes, “Creeping surveillance, the erosion of civil liberties, curfews and censorship grow into all-out civil war. Democracies crumble gradually – then suddenly, to quote Hemingway.”