Hungarian-British author David Szalay’s sixth novel, Flesh, was announced the winner of the prestigious Booker Prize on Monday.
First awarded in 1969, the Booker is recognised as the leading prize for quality literary fiction written in English.
Previously shortlisted for the Booker in 2016, Szalay’s winning title — as per the Booker Prize’s website — is ‘a spare but propulsive novel. Flesh follows a man from adolescence to old age as he is unravelled by a series of events beyond his grasp’.
“I knew I wanted to write a book with a Hungarian end and an English end ... I also wanted to write about life as a physical experience, about what it’s like to be a living body in the world – whatever divides us, we all share that. Those were the ingredients that I started with," Szalay shared in an interview conducted after Flesh was longlisted for the 2025 Booker Prize.
Chair of the judges, Roddy Doyle, described Flesh as “a dark book that is a joy to read ... I don’t think I’ve read a novel that uses the white space on the page so well. It’s as if the author is inviting the reader to fill the space, to observe – almost to create – the character with him. The writing is spare and that is its great strength. Every word matters; the spaces between the words matter. The book is about living, and the strangeness of living and, as we read, as we turn the pages, we’re glad we’re alive and reading – experiencing – this extraordinary, singular novel."
Click here to read an extract from Szalay’s acclaimed title.
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