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.

A powerful new novel from the author of Grace, winner of the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year

About the Author

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 2023 Booker Prize and was shortlisted for the Strega European Award and 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'a Nous for Best Foreign Novel, among other prizes. He has been shortlisted for many international awards, including the UK's Walter Scott Prize, and France's Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger, Prix Litterature-Monde, and the Jean Monnet Prize for European Literature.

In 2024, he was appointed Distinguished Writing Fellow at Maynooth University and was elected to Aosdana, which honours artists who have made outstanding contributions to the creative arts in Ireland. He lives in Dublin.

Reviews

'Lynch demonstrates a control over his ideas that comes from a pure lyrical telling, a speech act that, if you let it, will take you anywhere. Beyond the Sea is frightening but beautiful.' Guardian

'[Lynch's] novels are artistic creations...this absorbing book is an evocative one... His fourth novel has echoes of Melville, Dostoyevsky and William Golding...But the literary work it most invokes is Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.' The Sunday Times

'Such an aching sense of spaciousness feels in the spirit of its exotic setting, of Latin American sensualists such as Paulo Coelho or Pablo Neruda, or the deep eastern wisdoms of Hermann Hesse... Beyond the Sea deserves a special place in Lynch's increasingly fascinating and diverse catalogue.' Irish Independent

'Lynch has mastered the art of capturing his characters' anguish, and there is an enigmatic lyricism to his storytelling... The story is fantastically written, a truly magnificent portrayal of the gritty battle between despair and hope.' RTE

'A lucid, lyrical tale of two lost men... The language attains a poetic intensity that is unusual and well earned.' Irish Times

'Paul Lynch won the Irish Novel of the Year 2018 for Grace, a lushly lyrical adventure story set in Famine-era Ireland. His follow-up...[is] a short but absorbing tale of the lengths to which people go to avoid admitting who they really are.' Metro

'Masterly.' Sebastian Barry, author of Days Without End

'I finished this exquisite, meticulous, powerful novel...this afternoon. A fisherman and a youth adrift on the Pacific in a fishing boat. Nothing & everything happens, often at the same time. And what a stylist.' David Mitchell, author of Cloud Atlas

'Brutal and poetic... Alive with elegance and insight.' TLS

'Blew me away...a beautifully written and tightly controlled novel about the human spirit and what happens when it is pushed to the limit.' Christine Dwyer Hickey, author of The Narrow Land

'[This] stark, mesmerizing book reads like an existential argument between [life's] irreconcilable truths, a Beckett play bobbing in the open water...this fine book contains multitudes of experience.' Wall Street Journal

'The writing is vivid...conveying the claustrophobic reality of confinement in a small vessel.' Irish Examiner

'As good as anything I've read in recent memory.' Rob Doyle, author of Threshold

'Richly imagined...[has] the timeless aura and allegorical undertones of an ancient Greek myth...This is a book that will leave you feeling thoroughly wrung out by the final page, but also happy to be alive.' The Scotsman

'Combining the sensibilities of a Joseph Conrad or a Cormac McCarthy with the poetic intensity of an Emily Dickinson, this rich, raw, and powerful seascape by Paul Lynch throws the sea's storms and the sea's light into the darkest corners of human consciousness. An astonishing achievement.' Jane Urquhart, author of The Night Stages

'Lynch manages to transform a news story into a universal tale of friendship and endurance and love... Beyond the Sea is elemental. It is a story sliced to the bone. It compels the reader to look unblinkingly at matters of life and death, at the heart of what it means to be fully human.' New York Journal of Books

'A powerful, heart-breaking story of friendship forged in the most extreme conditions. With its echoes of Greek myth, it yields up those small moments of grace that are deeply transformative.' Mary Costello, author of Academy Street

'A novelist with the eye and the ear and the heart of an absolute master. Paul Lynch is peerless.' Donal Ryan, author of From a Low and Quiet Sea

'Thrillingly stripped-back prose composed of simple, declarative sentences...viscerally captures Bolivar's physical and spiritual transformation.' The Australian

'Paul Lynch is one of our greatest writers, and Beyond the Sea is his best work yet. A sublime, elemental, fever dream of a novel that constantly tests us, tempts us, and guides us.' Paul Yoon, author of Run Me to Earth

'With echoes of Camus, McCarthy, Hemingway, and Coleridge...the author of Grace (my favourite novel of 2017) presents a harrowing, yet redemptive tale of spiritual purgation delivered with poetic and deeply evocative prose.' Readings (Australia)

Book Information
ISBN 9781786077608
Author Paul Lynch
Format Paperback
Page Count 192
Imprint Oneworld Publications
Publisher Oneworld Publications
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 129mm * 15mm