Paul Lynch is an Irish novelist. She has won several prestigious awards, including the Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award (2018) for her novel Grace and the Booker Prize (2023) for her novel Prophet’s Song.
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Wiki/Biography
Paul Lynch was born on Monday, 9 May 1977 (age 46 years; as in 2023) in Limerick, Ireland. His zodiac sign is Taurus. When he was an infant, his family moved to Donegal, where he spent his childhood in remote Malin Head. When he was four years old his mother taught him to read using flash cards from a cereal box.
He became a reader of an abridged version of the popular novel King Solomon’s Mines (1885) by the English Victorian adventure writer Sir H. Rider Haggard. Lynch was eight years old at the time. In an interview he described reading his first book, saying,
I’ll never forget that first feeling of being overwhelmed by a great book. I used to study every night till two or three in the morning. I used to read books hiding under the desk in school.
An avid reader as a child, Lynch took a job at the town’s only bookstore at the age of 11 so he could get free books. In an interview, recalling his days in the bookstore, he said,
The pay was terrible. Two pounds for Saturday I think. I had to wash mugs in hand basins in smelly toilets and drink tea with sour milk. However, I didn’t feel so bad – I was devouring every book in sight.”
He enrolled at University College Dublin (UCD) to learn English and philosophy, but he left college. In his twenties, he played in a rock band, performing on stages around Dublin. He later lived in Dublin with his family.
Physical Appearance
Height (Approx): 5′ 10″
Hair Colour: Brown
Eye colour: brown
Family
parents and siblings
Lynch’s father worked for the Irish Coast Guard, and his mother was an adult literacy teacher. Lynch is the middle child of three siblings.
wife and children
He was married to Sarah Lynch, but they later separated. He has two children, one of whom is a girl.
livelihood
Paul Lynch spent his twenties trying to avoid becoming a writer because he was afraid of failure. Reading during his childhood and adolescence had made his standards of fiction impossibly high. At the age of 30, he had an epiphany on a hill while on holiday in Lipari, Sicily. This was the moment when Lynch knew he had to start writing. He returned to his hotel and wrote his first short story. It took him three years to write his first novel. He worked as a journalist, serving as chief film critic of Ireland’s Sunday Tribune newspaper from 2007 to 2011. Before becoming a full-time novelist he wrote regularly on film for The Sunday Times. In 2013, Lynch published her first book, Red Sky in the Morning, which earned her widespread critical acclaim in the United States and France.
It was the subject of a six-publisher auction in London. The book’s inspiration came from a television documentary detailing the excavations at Duffy’s Cut, near Philadelphia, where, during the 1830s, Irish immigrants – primarily from Ulster – were buried in a mass grave without trace. Were found. These Irish people died of cholera. The novel explores themes such as migration, racism and cruelty against Irish immigrants. The book was a finalist for France’s Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger (Best Foreign Book Award) and was nominated for the Prix du Premiere Roman (First Novel Award). His second book, The Black Snow, was published in the UK and Ireland in 2014 and in the US in 2015.
The novel depicts an Irish immigrant’s return home to his native community in County Donegal and the tragic events that follow a fire in a cowshed. In France, the book won the French Booksellers’ award Prix Libre’a Nous for best foreign novel and the first Prix des Lecteurs Privat. It was also nominated for the Prix Femina and the Prix du Roman FNAC (FNAC Novel Award). On June 7, 2017, Lynch’s third novel, Grace, was published in paperback by Oneworld.
The book is about a young girl trying to survive during the Irish Famine. This is the story of him growing up and the challenges he faces. The Washington Post called Grace “a poignant work of lyrical and sometimes hallucinatory beauty… that feels like a mix of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath and Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.” In 2018, Paul Lynch received the €15,000 Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year Award 2017 for Grace, which was presented during the opening evening of Listowel Writers’ Week in Kerry. The book was shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction in 2018, the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing in 2018, the Grand Prix de l’Héroine in 2019, and the Prix Jean-Monnet de Littérature Européenne in 2019. It was in June that the Irish Times Book Club selected the title. In 2019, Lynch published his fourth novel, Beyond the Sea. The book tells the terrifying story of two people stranded at sea who struggle against their physical and mental limits to survive.
In 2023, Lynch achieved international stardom when her fifth novel, Prophet’s Song, won the Booker Prize, one of the world’s most prestigious literary prizes. The book was inspired by the Syrian war and refugee crisis. Set in Dublin, the novel tells of the challenges faced by the Stack family, particularly mother of four Eilish Stack, who is working to protect her family as the Republic of Ireland descends into totalitarianism.
Theme and style
Lynch is all concerned with Irish history and all his characters are victims. He gained popularity for his poetic, lyrical style and exploration of complex themes. Growing up in Donegal, he felt like an outsider, which is deeply evident in his books. Talking about this in an interview, he said,
I felt isolated as a child, I felt like I didn’t belong because other kids constantly told me I was an outsider so I grew up with no sense of belonging. And you’ll see deeper into my books that many of my characters are outsider-minded. If you’re a sensitive, intuitive male, as I am, growing up presents challenges.’
In an interview, Lynch revealed that Prophet Song originated from the Syrian refugee crisis. In 2015, a two-year-old Syrian boy named Alan Kurdi made global headlines after his tiny body washed up on a beach in Turkey amid the European refugee crisis. This incident inspired Lynch to begin writing the song Prophet.
award
- 2016: Prix des Lecters Privet for her novel Grace
- 2016: Prix Libre’a Nous Award for Best Foreign Novel for her novel Grace
- 2018: Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year Award for her novel Grace
- 2020: Literary Award of the Francophonie Ambassadors of Ireland for her novel Grace
- 2022: Prix Jans de Mer for her novel Beyond the Sea
- 2023: Booker Prize for his novel Prophet Song
Paul Lynch after winning the Booker Prize (2023)
Facts/General Knowledge
- A music lover, Lynch has a vast collection of jazz records, and owns two metal-style electric guitars.
- In an interview, Lynch revealed that he spent four years working on Prophet Song (2023). He started writing it just before his son was born and by the time he finished it, his son was able to ride a bike.
- He got cancer at the age of 45. There was a tumor in his kidney. In 2023, he got surgery done for this.
Categories: Biography
Source: vcmp.edu.vn