David Szalay wins 2025 Booker Prize for novel ‘Flesh’

British-Hungarian author David Szalay won the 2025 Booker Prize for his sixth novel Flesh at a ceremony held at Old Billingsgate in London on Monday night, with the judging panel unanimously selecting his work after more than five hours of deliberationthe-independent.

The minimalist novel follows István, an inscrutable Hungarian man, through decades of his life from boyhood to late-middle age, exploring modern masculinity through sparse prose and innovative use of white space on the pagethe-independent.

Roddy Doyle, chair of the judging panel and previous Booker winner, praised Flesh for its “singularity,” saying “we had never read anything quite like it,” while the judges described it as “spare, disciplined, urgent, honest and heartbreaking”the-independent.

The 51-year-old Szalay receives £50,000 in prize money and was presented the award by last year’s winner Samantha Harvey, marking his second Booker shortlist after being nominated in 2016 for All That Man Isthe-independent.

This year’s shortlist notably featured zero debut novels, including only established authors such as Kiran Desai, Ben Markovits, Susan Choi, Andrew Miller, and Katie Kitamura, with Miller’s The Land in Winter having been the bookmakers’ favorite before Szalay’s surprise winthe-independent.

David Szalay Wins 2025 Booker Prize for Minimalist Novel Flesh

British-Hungarian author David Szalay claimed the 2025 Booker Prize on Monday night for his sixth novel Flesh, a spare exploration of masculinity that traces a Hungarian man’s journey from poverty to London’s upper echelons. The judges unanimously selected Szalay’s work after more than five hours of deliberation at Old Billingsgate in London, marking a rare consensus for one of literature’s most prestigious awards.the-independent

“We had never read anything quite like it,” said Roddy Doyle, chair of the judging panel and the 1993 Booker winner, announcing the decision before a crowd that included actors Jason Isaacs and Sarah Jessica Parker, who served as a judge. The panel praised the novel’s “singularity” and its unconventional use of white space on the page to convey emotion.irishexaminer

A Spare Portrait of Modern Masculinity

Flesh follows István, a taciturn loner whose life unfolds through nine episodic chapters spanning decades. From a teenage affair with his middle-aged neighbor in Hungary through service in the Iraq War to work as a London security guard that brings him into contact with the ultra-wealthy, István remains emotionally inscrutable, often responding with monosyllabic “okay” and “yeah”.nytimes

“I don’t think I’ve read a novel that uses the white space on the page so well,” Doyle said at a press conference. “It’s as if the author, David Szalay, is inviting the reader to fill the space, to observe—almost to create—the character with him”. The minimalist dialogue and pared-back narration reflect what Doyle described as an “old-fashioned masculinity,” comparing István to taciturn western heroes.irishexaminer

Gaby Wood, chief executive of the Booker Prize Foundation, called the novel “spare, disciplined, urgent, honest and heartbreaking”. The book has attracted celebrity admirers including pop star Dua Lipa, who selected it for her book club in October, and rapper Stormzy, who performed an excerpt in a short film screened at Monday’s ceremony.bbc

Second Booker Shortlist for Szalay

The 51-year-old Szalay, who was born in Montreal to a Hungarian father and Canadian mother but grew up in London, was previously shortlisted for the Booker in 2016 for All That Man Is, a collection of interconnected stories exploring European masculinity. He called that experience “a dreadful experience” and “highly tense,” telling The Guardian that losing to Paul Beatty’s The Sellout left a trauma.nytimes

Accepting the award from last year’s winner Samantha Harvey, Szalay said it felt “risky” to write Flesh. “Fiction can take risks. It can take aesthetic risks, formal risks, perhaps even moral risks, which many other forms can’t quite do to the same extent,” he told the audience.rnz

The novel began in 2020 after Szalay abandoned a manuscript he’d worked on for nearly four years. “You might be able to abandon one book, but you can’t abandon two books in a row; then it starts to look like a real problem,” he said in a recent interview.abc

Szalay’s victory came as a surprise to some observers, as Andrew Miller’s The Land in Winter had been the bookmakers’ favorite. The shortlist also included previous Booker winner Kiran Desai (The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny), Susan Choi (Flashlight), Katie Kitamura (Audition), and Ben Markovits (The Rest of Our Lives). Notably, this year’s shortlist featured no debut novels, with the six authors having published 42 novels between them.independent

Szalay receives £50,000 and a trophy named Iris after 1978 winner Iris Murdoch. The author, who now lives in Vienna, told Dua Lipa in a recent conversation that he wanted to write “about life as a physical experience, about what it’s like to be a living body in the world”.the-independent