A Love Letter to the Dublin Literary Award (and Why Prophet Song Has My Heart)

Every May, as the city’s chestnut trees unfurl and someone inevitably references Ulysses over brunch, Dublin becomes something else entirely. Not just a UNESCO City of Literature in title, but in spirit. Our Georgian squares fill with poets and podcast people, notebooks and non-fiction. And no corner feels more like the beating heart of this bibliophilic bloom than Merrion Square during the International Literature Festival Dublin (or, as I like to call it, “Book Christmas”).

From May 16 to 25, the ILFD returns with all the glittering chaos of a well-loved secondhand bookshop (i.e. us!): a little bit earnest, a little bit odd, and absolutely packed with treasures. There will be wordy walks and late-night salons, hot takes and hot drinks, literary lunches and children running around dressed as dragons. The programme reads like a bookshelf of dreams, with names like Colm Tóibín on stage, and appearances from Roxane Gay, David Nicholls, Ece Temelkuran, Serhii Plokhy, and the fascinating Stuart Murdoch, frontman of Belle and Sebastian, who will not only be speaking about his novel but singing as well. As one does, at literary festivals.

The ILFD Schools Programme this year is full of magic and mayhem, aimed at everyone from junior infants to sixth class. It includes interactive performances, hands-on workshops, and gloriously chaotic creativity from authors and illustrators on everything from dinosaurs and doodling to Irish culture and fantastical beasts. Meanwhile, teens can look forward to “Teenage Kicks,” featuring Irish YA stars Fíona Scarlett and John Patrick McHugh, and a practical insider event about publishing for Young Adult and children’s books, designed for the hopeful author hunched over a battered copybook in their bedroom.

The Award That Stops Time

But amid the many delights, and the occasional rain-drenched poetry tent, there is one event that always feels extra special. The Dublin Literary Award. With a prize of €100,000 (yes, you read that correctly), it’s not only the world’s most lucrative award for a single novel written or translated into English, it’s also entirely nominated by libraries. Global, public, people’s libraries. No publisher lobbying. Just librarians saying: “You should read this.”

And if that’s not enough to make you misty-eyed, consider the past winners. We’ve had Valeria Luiselli for Lost Children Archive (2021), Emily Ruskovich for Idaho, Juan Gabriel Vásquez, Colm Tóibín himself for The Master, and, oh be still my reader’s heart, Herta Müller, Per Petterson, Nicole Krauss, Orhan Pamuk. It’s like a Nobel longlist that had the sense to cut the waffle.

The 2025 Shortlist: A Literary Eurovision (Without the Sequins)

  • James by Percival Everett: Twain turned on its head. Jim takes centre stage. Smart, subversive, and as sharp as a snapped branch in Mississippi mud.
  • North Woods by Daniel Mason: A centuries-spanning novel rooted in a single patch of land. I tried to read it on the bus. Mistake. Too beautiful. Distracting. Missed my stop.
  • Not a River by Selva Almada (trans. Annie McDermott): Argentine heat, myth, and mourning. You can feel the weight of the water pressing on every line.
  • The Adversary by Michael Crummey: Newfoundland bleakness and biblical-style battles between two warring families. Think Wuthering Heights meets The Revenant, with added salted cod.
  • We Are Light by Gerda Blees (trans. Michele Hutchison): Cults, light therapy, and communal delusion. Strange and funny and full of grace.
  • And of course: Prophet Song by Paul Lynch. My pick. My hope. My quietly sweaty palms.

Why Prophet Song?

Let me be clear. Prophet Song is not an easy book. It doesn't pander. It is urgent, unrelenting, and masterful. A mother struggles to protect her family as Ireland slips into authoritarianism, a scenario that feels chillingly plausible, especially on a news-heavy day. Lynch writes in long, unbroken paragraphs that mirror the breathlessness of fear, the relentless march of change. At times, I found myself holding my breath, unsure whether I could go on. And then I did. Because you do. Because she does.

And because it is brilliant.

There is a moment in Prophet Song where everything familiar collapses, quietly, like a star imploding. You don’t notice the horror until you’re already inside it. That, to me, is what literature at its best can do. Not just tell you what’s happening, but how it feels to live through it.

I’ve tried to be objective, I really have. I’ve read the other books (some more than once, with different coloured pens). I’ve nodded thoughtfully at discussions of liminality and narrative voice. I’ve had Proper Conversations about intertextuality. But my heart? It belongs to Prophet Song.

Stories, Salons, and Slightly Damp Poetry Tents

Still, this is Dublin. And if there’s one thing we know how to do, other than sing mournfully at closing time, it’s celebrate a good story. The ILFD offers something for everyone. This year’s highlights include Roxane Gay on what it means to mind other people’s business (spoiler: it's fascinating), Stuart Murdoch reading from his debut novel and singing (as if the rest of us weren’t trying hard enough), and Ece Temelkuran asking whether we are, in fact, together at all. There's also Naoise Dolan in conversation with Italian author Vincenzo Latronico, and a sobering, essential talk on Ukraine and nuclear politics by Serhii Plokhy.

Around all of that? Walking tours, yoga, poetry slams, film screenings, and a festival fringe that’s equal parts thoughtful, chaotic, and slightly damp.

If you find yourself in Dublin this May, go. Go to a talk you know nothing about. Go hear a poet you’ve never heard of. Go see the big names, yes, but also the new ones, the ones clutching debut novels with trembling hands and hopeful eyes. Let them remind you what it feels like to fall in love with a sentence.

And on May 23, when the winner of the Dublin Literary Award is announced, spare a thought for the shy readers and nervous writers who’ve filled the tent. For the librarians who nominated the books. For the parents who gave their kids library cards. For the stories that remind us we are not alone.

And if it’s Prophet Song, well. I’ll be the one crying softly behind oversized sunglasses, pretending it’s the pollen.

Here’s to books that hurt a little. To festivals that nourish.
To cities that still believe literature matters.
And to the writers brave enough to imagine what happens when it doesn’t.

I write essays, blogs, tweets and grumble about my TBR pile, and occasionally says something clever by accident. Find me wandering between the secondhand poetry shelves and the good coffee in Arboretum (it’s tea actually, I’m a walking teapot, but it didn’t scan as well).