"“I was trying to see into the modern chaos,” Lynch told the Booker website. “The unrest in Western democracies. The problem of Syria — the implosion of an enti

"“I was trying to see into the modern chaos,” Lynch told the Booker website. “The unrest in Western democracies. The problem of Syria — the implosion of an entire nation, the scale of its refugee crisis and the West’s indifference. … I wanted to deepen the reader's immersion to such a degree that by the end of the book, they would not just know, but feel this problem for themselves.”"