Hungarian-British writer David Szalay, aged 51, has triumphed in the 2025 Booker Prize with his introspective novel Flesh, which chronicles the turbulent life of a reserved Hungarian immigrant named István who rises from poverty to immense wealth only to see it crumble away. The award ceremony unfolded on November 10, 2025, at London’s historic Old Billingsgate market, where Szalay outshone five fellow shortlisted authors to secure the £50,000 prize—equivalent to roughly $65,500 USD—along with widespread acclaim for his innovative storytelling. This marks Szalay’s first Booker victory, building on his previous shortlisting in 2016 for All That Man Is, a collection of interconnected stories about diverse men navigating modern existence.
Born in Montreal, Canada, to a Hungarian father and British mother, Szalay’s win highlights his unique perspective as someone who has lived across continents, from the UK where he was raised, to Vienna where he now resides. The Booker Prize, established in 1969, continues to spotlight groundbreaking fiction in English, and Szalay’s success underscores its role in elevating voices that blend personal introspection with broader societal themes.
Exploring the Depths of Flesh
Flesh unfolds as a poignant, non-linear portrait of István’s life spanning over five decades, beginning in the late 1980s in a drab Hungarian housing estate where the 15-year-old protagonist moves with his widowed mother to an unnamed industrial town. The narrative opens with István’s awkward adolescence, marked by social isolation at his new school and a fleeting friendship with a brash classmate who boasts about his sexual exploits and even arranges a humiliating rejection for István with a girl his age.
Seeking solace, István follows his mother’s suggestion to assist their middle-aged neighbor, Mrs. Kovács, with her grocery shopping this innocent errand quickly evolves into a predatory sexual relationship, where the older woman grooms the passive teen, leading to intense but exploitative encounters that culminate in tragedy when István accidentally causes the death of her frail husband during a confrontation. This early incident, rendered in stark, understated prose, sends István spiraling he serves time in a young offenders’ institution, emerges with a criminal record that bars normal employment, and enlists in the Hungarian army, where he is deployed to the Iraq War—a pivotal but largely off-page experience that hardens his taciturn nature.
Upon returning to civilian life in post-communist Hungary, István drifts into low-level security work, bouncing between bouncer gigs in seedy clubs and brief stints in the underground drug trade across Eastern Europe, all while grappling with alienation and the lingering scars of his youth. The story’s turning point arrives when he relocates to the UK following Hungary’s EU accession, initially scraping by as a doorman at a London strip club.
Fate intervenes during a late-night mugging István heroically intervenes to save Mervyn, a affluent businessman, who repays him by offering a chauffeur position for his wealthy family. This Pygmalion-esque ascent propels István into the opulent world of London’s elite he marries Mervyn’s young widow, Helen, after Mervyn’s untimely death, inherits a stake in the family business, and pivots to high-stakes property development, amassing a fortune through savvy deals in the booming real estate market.
Yet, prosperity brings its own perils István’s affair with Helen sours amid her boozy socialite lifestyle, his volatile temper erupts in a public brawl with his stepson Thomas, and a catastrophic business misstep—hinted at through a devastating car accident and financial ruin—strips away his gains, leaving him to confront the emptiness of his achievements. Szalay’s structure masterfully employs “knife plunge” moments, skipping over violence and trauma to let readers fill the voids with their imaginations, creating a rhythm that mirrors István’s detached, observational mindset.
Critics have lauded Flesh for its sparse, almost Beckettian style, where white spaces on the page invite active reader participation, and key events unfold in clipped sentences or are implied through absence, emphasizing the novel’s exploration of unspoken pains. The Guardian described it as a “brilliant portrait of a man” and a “chilling examination of what it means to be alive,” while The Sunday Times highlighted how it captures the “super-sadness of modern Europe” through István’s lens. Themes of toxic masculinity emerge subtly, as István’s repressed emotions and physical strength lead to cycles of harm, raising questions about whether such traits are innate or environmentally forged, especially in the context of migration and class upheaval.
Reviewers note the book’s queasy undertones, particularly in how it portrays men as victims of their instincts amid rising discussions in online spaces like the “manosphere.” Despite its darkness, the narrative grips with its unflinching realism, blending carnal imagery—echoing phrases like “pound of flesh” or “flesh and blood”—to underscore the raw, bodily costs of ambition and desire. Published by Jonathan Cape in the UK and Scribner in the US, Flesh clocks in at around 300 pages, its economy of words amplifying the weight of every revelation.
Ceremony Highlights and Judges’ Acclaim
The star-studded Booker Prize gala at Old Billingsgate buzzed with literary luminaries, including celebrities like Dua Lipa, who had championed Flesh in her book club, and rapper Stormzy, who lent his voice to a dramatic reading of a key passage for the event’s promotional film. Szalay, visibly stunned, accepted the gleaming trophy and quipped about his initial skepticism he had once asked his editor if a book titled Flesh—with its earthy, provocative connotations—could realistically clinch the prize, only to conclude his speech with, “You have your answer.
In a post-win interview with BBC Radio, the author reflected on feeling “a bit dazed but absolutely fantastic,” attributing the novel’s inspiration to his own sense of displacement despite his Hungarian heritage, he never fully belonged there, and years away from London fostered similar outsider vibes in the UK. Szalay emphasized his desire to bridge Hungary and London through István, a character perpetually adrift between worlds. The evening also featured shortlisted authors receiving £2,500 each, with the prize’s history of skyrocketing sales already evident as Flesh topped bestseller lists overnight.
Presiding over the judging panel was acclaimed Irish novelist Roddy Doyle, joined by Nigerian-British author Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀, British writer Chris Power, American novelist Kiley Reid, and Hollywood star Sarah Jessica Parker, whose diverse perspectives enriched the deliberation. From a pool of 153 eligible novels published between October 1, 2024, and September 30, 2025, in the UK or Ireland, the panel whittled down to a longlist of 13 announced on July 29, a shortlist of six on September 23, and finally Flesh after a rigorous five-hour meeting.
Doyle praised it as a unanimous choice, calling it “about living, and the strangeness of living”—a dark yet joyful read unlike anything they’d encountered. He marveled at Szalay’s use of page space, noting how it “invites the reader to fill the space, to observe—almost to create—the character with him,” transforming passive reading into an collaborative act. Parker’s involvement, drawing from her Sex and the City fame and literary passion, added a pop culture sheen, while Adébáyọ̀ highlighted the novel’s nuanced take on migration’s emotional toll. The judges’ statement encapsulated Flesh as a “compelling portrait” meditating on class, power, intimacy, migration, and masculinity, with formative experiences rippling across a lifetime.
A Competitive Shortlist of Standouts
The 2025 shortlist brimmed with talent, pitting Szalay against heavy hitters and reflecting the prize’s global reach. Leading the pack in betting odds was Kiran Desai, the Indian-American author whose 2006 Booker win for The Inheritance of Loss made her a sentimental favorite; her entry, The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, weaves a multigenerational saga across India, the US, and UK, exploring diaspora, identity, and familial bonds in her first novel since that triumph. Close behind was Andrew Miller, the UK-based writer shortlisted in 2001 for Oxygen, returning with The Land in Winter, a intimate 1960s domestic drama delving into grief, memory, and rural English life amid post-war changes.
Rounding out the finalists were Susan Choi’s Flashlight, a twisty family mystery unpacking hidden traumas and reconciliation; Katie Kitamura’s Audition, a psychological thriller on performance, deception, and self-invention in the theater world and Ben Markovits’s The Rest of Our Lives, a reflective road trip narrative tackling midlife regrets, fatherhood, and reinvention during a cross-country journey. Each book showcased distinct voices, from Desai’s epic scope to Miller’s quiet lyricism, making Szalay’s unconventional structure a bold standout. The International Booker, awarded separately in May 2025 to Indian activist Banu Mushtaq for Heart Lamp—12 interconnected tales of Muslim women and girls in southern India—further emphasized the prize’s commitment to diverse narratives.
Szalay’s Journey as a Writer
David Szalay’s path to literary prominence weaves through a multicultural upbringing and persistent experimentation with form. Born on January 26, 1975, in Montreal, he relocated to England at age one, attended Cambridge University (not Oxford, as sometimes misreported), and later settled in Vienna with his family. His Hungarian roots, inherited from his father who fled the 1956 uprising, infuse his work with themes of displacement, evident in earlier novels like London and the South-East (2008), a debut that nabbed the Betty Trask Award for young authors and the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize for its satirical take on middle-class malaise. Subsequent books—The Innocent (2009), a tense father-son thriller set in post-9/11 London Spring (2011), exploring fleeting romances; and the 2013 novella Into the Dark—honed his concise style, earning spots on lists like Granta’s Best Young British Novelists and The Telegraph’s top under-40 writers.
Szalay’s breakthrough came with All That Man Is (2016), a Booker-shortlisted mosaic of nine men’s lives across Europe, which also won the Gordon Burn Prize and drew comparisons to Karl Ove Knausgård for its raw male introspection. He ventured into short forms with Turbulence (2018), originally BBC Radio 4 dramas linking global strangers in airport vignettes, praised by The Spectator for capturing Europe’s underlying anxieties. Beyond novels, Szalay has penned radio plays and journalism for outlets like The Guardian. Flesh, his sixth fiction work, represents a culmination more focused than his ensemble pieces, it distills his fascination with quiet masculinity into a single, haunting arc. Agents at AM Heath and publishers like Penguin Random House laud his “stylistic legerdemain,” where innovation happens at the sentence level, leaving much unsaid to profound effect. Szalay’s oeuvre consistently probes the “strangeness of living,” as Doyle noted, blending Eastern European fatalism with Western ambition.
The Enduring Impact of the Booker Prize
Since its inception in 1969 by the Booker McConnell food company—now solely funded by the Booker Foundation—the prize has revolutionized literary fiction by championing bold, original works in English from the UK, Ireland, or Commonwealth nations. Valued at £50,000 since 2002 (up from an initial £5,000), it not only provides financial stability but catapults winners to international fame, often multiplying sales by tens of fold for instance, last year’s victor, Samantha Harvey’s Orbital, a slim meditation on astronauts’ isolation aboard the International Space Station, saw reprints in multiple languages within weeks.
Iconic past recipients include Salman Rushdie’s magical realist epic Midnight’s Children (1981), which redefined postcolonial literature Arundhati Roy’s debut The God of Small Things (1997), a lyrical tale of forbidden love in Kerala that faced censorship battles; Margaret Atwood’s dystopian The Blind Assassin (2000) and Ian McEwan’s psychological dramas like Atonement (2001 shortlist, though he won earlier). Indian laureates abound, from V.S. Naipaul (1971) and Aravind Adiga (2008’s The White Tiger) to the International Booker’s nods for Geetanjali Shree’s Tomb of Sand (2022) and Mushtaq’s 2025 win, spotlighting translated voices from the Global South.
The prize’s judging process, involving five experts from literature, arts, and public life, ensures broad appeal while maintaining rigor; controversies, like the 2014 all-male longlist, have prompted inclusivity pushes, resulting in more diverse shortlists today. Beyond fiction, a Children’s Booker debuts in 2027, expanding its footprint. For Szalay, the win affirms Flesh‘s resonance, inviting readers to ponder how personal histories intersect with global forces, much like the prize itself bridges cultures and eras.
