A singular, haunting novel that redefines the art of storytelling and explores the strangeness of being alive.
In a remarkable literary moment, David Szalay has been announced as the winner of the 2025 Booker Prize for Fiction for his deeply affecting and beautifully crafted novel, Flesh. Published by Penguin Random House, this marks Szalay’s first Booker win, following his earlier shortlisting in 2016 for All That Man Is. The victory cements his place among the most daring and original voices in contemporary fiction.
During the glittering award ceremony in London on November 10, 2025, Szalay expressed his gratitude and reflected on the creative risks that shaped his novel. “There was a sense of risk being taken,” he said in his acceptance speech. “And I think it’s very important that we did take those risks. Fiction can take risks—aesthetic, formal, or even moral risks. It’s important that the novel community embraces risk.” His words echoed the very essence of Flesh, a work that defies convention and pushes the boundaries of storytelling.
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About the Winning Book: Flesh
At once intimate and expansive, Flesh tells the story of István, a man whose life is slowly and inexorably transformed by desire, circumstance, and time. Beginning in a small Hungarian town, the novel charts István’s journey from adolescence to old age, tracing the subtle and often invisible forces that shape his destiny.
At fifteen, István lives with his mother, navigating the difficult terrain of youth in a place where everyone seems to know everyone else. When an unexpected and illicit relationship upends his sense of self, it sets off a chain of events that reverberate across his lifetime. Szalay’s prose—precise, spare, and charged with emotion—captures the quiet moments that define a person’s life as much as their grandest choices.
As István’s story unfolds, he moves through vastly different worlds: from the disciplined routine of the Hungarian army to the glittering but hollow excess of London’s super-rich elite. Through these transitions, Szalay paints a portrait of a man—and, by extension, a species—caught between the search for meaning and the inevitability of loss. Themes of power, desire, alienation, and mortality echo through the novel, making Flesh both deeply personal and universally resonant.
The novel opens with understated grace, its first lines drawing readers into István’s quiet struggle:
“When he’s fifteen, he and his mother move to a new town and he starts at a new school. It’s not an easy age to do that—the social order of the school is already well established and he has some difficulty making friends…”
From this deceptively simple beginning, Szalay builds a narrative that spans decades, revealing how the smallest decisions—often made in youth—can define an entire life.
Why Flesh Stands Out
What makes Flesh exceptional is Szalay’s commitment to emotional and structural honesty. The novel is spare yet propulsive, balancing a minimalist style with profound depth. It refuses melodrama, instead finding power in stillness and silence. Each scene feels deliberate, every sentence honed to its essence.
Critics have praised Flesh for its ability to convey immense psychological tension through understatement. The Booker Prize judges described it as “a daring meditation on what it means to be human in a time of profound uncertainty—told with both intimacy and ambition.”
Szalay’s work blurs the line between realism and parable. Flesh is not just the story of István; it is also an exploration of the strangeness of being alive, of inhabiting a body that ages, desires, and decays. In that sense, the title becomes a metaphor for both vulnerability and existence itself.
About the Author: David Szalay
David Szalay is the first Hungarian-British writer to win the Booker Prize, a testament to his unique cross-cultural perspective. Born in Canada, Szalay has lived in Lebanon, the United Kingdom, and Hungary, and now makes his home in Vienna. This global background infuses his fiction with a rare universality—his characters, though specific in their experiences, reflect shared human conditions that transcend borders.
Szalay has written six acclaimed works of fiction, translated into over twenty languages, along with several BBC radio dramas. His debut, London and the South-East (2008), won both the Betty Trask Prize and the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, signaling the arrival of a significant literary talent.
His 2016 novel, All That Man Is, brought him international acclaim and a Booker Prize shortlist, later winning the Gordon Burn Prize and the Plimpton Prize for Fiction. With Flesh, Szalay has continued his exploration of masculinity, morality, and mortality—delivered with a clarity and restraint that have become his signature.
A Landmark in Modern Fiction
With Flesh, David Szalay has not only captured the Booker Prize but also reaffirmed fiction’s power to probe the depths of human consciousness. His win is being celebrated as a triumph of literary courage—a reminder that storytelling still has the ability to challenge, unsettle, and illuminate.
For readers around the world, Flesh offers an experience both raw and transcendent—a story of one man’s life that, in its quiet power, speaks to all of us.
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