Beyond the Sea
Chosen as a Book of the Year by Sebastian Barry, Martina Devlin and Peter Cunningham
Winner of the Prix Gens de Mer, 2022
Hector and Bolivar set sail from their South American fishing village on what they believe to be a routine expedition. But then a devastating storm casts them adrift in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. With no means of contacting the outside world and no sign of rescue, their only hope lies with one another. Both men must confront the truth about themselves, and the regrets that they have spent a lifetime trying to forget, if they are to survive.
Part gripping story of resilience, part fearless existential parable, Beyond the Sea is a meditation on what it means to be human, in a world that pushes us to the brink.
Paul Lynch is the award-winning author of five novels — Prophet Song, Beyond the Sea, Grace, The Black Snow and Red Sky in Morning. His most recent novel, Prophet Song, won the 2023 Booker Prize and the 2024 Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and was shortlisted for the An Post Irish Novel of the Year. He has previously won the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year and France’s Prix Libr’à Nous for Best Foreign Novel, among other prizes. He has been shortlisted for many international awards, including the Walter Scott Prize, France’s Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger and Prix Littérature-Monde, and the Jean Monnet Prize for European Literature.
In 2024, he was appointed Distinguished Writing Fellow at Maynooth University and was elected to Aosdána, which honours artists who have made outstanding contributions to the creative arts in Ireland. He lives in Dublin.