Nicola Sturgeon is known as an avid reader (Jane Barlow/PA) Nicola Sturgeon has said she wishes more UK political leaders would read Paul Lynch’s Booker Prize-winning novel Prophet Song. Scotland’s former first minister also said she wishes that more political leaders read fiction “as a general principle”. Prophet Song tells the story of a mother of four working as a scientist whose husband is taken away by the newly formed Irish secret police and her struggle to keep her family together under a tyrannical government.
Paul Lynch won last year’s Booker Prize (Lucy North/PA) Discussing the book with the Irish author at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, Ms Sturgeon touched on how one of the characters in the book gets in a boat, and said the novel should in some ways act as a “wake-up call to all of us”. Scotland’s former first minister said: “She lives a life that all of us in this country can recognise, and therefore what happens to her suddenly doesn’t seem far away. It’s something we can conceive of and imagine.
” Ms Sturgeon added: “She gets in a boat. And yet, so much of the discourse in this country is inhumane about people who take boats to come here, and is fuelling something really, you know, horrific in parts of this country. “So, you know, in some ways, you know, this is a book I would love political leaders in certain other parts of the UK to read and to understand.
“I wish more political leaders read fiction, by the way, just a.