An extract from Flesh by David Szalay
‘He tries to work out if his friend is telling the truth or if he’s lying. Though he would prefer him to be lying, he thinks that he’s probably telling the truth’
Flesh is the winner of the Booker Prize 2025. A propulsive, hypnotic novel about a man who is unravelled by a series of events beyond his grasp
Fifteen-year-old István lives with his mother in a quiet apartment complex in Hungary. New to the town and shy, he is unfamiliar with the social rituals at school and soon becomes isolated, with his neighbour – a married woman close to his mother’s age – as his only companion. Their encounters shift into a clandestine relationship that István barely understands, and his life soon spirals out of control.
As the years pass, he is carried gradually upwards on the 21st century’s tides of money and power, moving from the army to the company of London’s super-rich, with his own competing impulses for love, intimacy, status and wealth winning him unimaginable riches, until they threaten to undo him completely.
Spare and penetrating, Flesh asks profound questions about what drives a life: what makes it worth living, and what breaks it.
Flesh was announced as the winner of the Booker Prize 2025 on November 10, 2025.
David Szalay
About the Author
Winner of the Booker Prize 2025 for Flesh. David Szalay was born in Canada, grew up in London and now lives in ViennaUsing only the sparest of prose, this hypnotically tense and compelling book becomes an astonishingly moving portrait of a man’s life
— The Booker Prize 2025 judges
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What the judges said
‘David Szalay’s fifth novel follows István from his teenage years on a Hungarian housing estate to borstal, and from soldiering in Iraq to his career as personal security for London’s super-rich. In many ways István is stereotypically masculine – physical, impulsive, barely on speaking terms with his own feelings (and for much of the novel barely speaking: he must rank among the more reticent characters in literature). But somehow, using only the sparest of prose, this hypnotically tense and compelling book becomes an astonishingly moving portrait of a man’s life.’
What the critics said
Luke Brown, Financial Times
‘Such novels are now rare, as male writers seem increasingly frightened to describe and reckon with the potentially destructive aspects of their character. In this context Flesh feels especially refreshing, illuminating and true. More than that, it is a moving work of art with a plot that compels and surprises and devastates.’
Johanna Thomas-Corr, Sunday Times
‘Once or twice a year, I discover a novelist who is so exciting to read I want to share their work with everyone I know – the kind of writer who makes me want to write fiction… It’s rare to find prose this spare that doesn’t feel affected, but Szalay handles surface and depth with skill, as only great novelists can. Flesh is a revelatory novel that will make you look afresh at every eastern European doorman or bouncer you encounter.’
Other nominated books by David Szalay
David Szalay discerns a shared longing in the hearts of nine ludicrous and inarticulate, shocking and despicable, vital, pitiable, hilarious men
