Szalay wins Booker Prize for tortured tale of masculinity

LONDON: British-Hungarian writer David Szalay won the Booker Prize on Monday for his novel 'Flesh', a tortured story of a Hungarian emigre who makes and loses a fortune.
Szalay beat five other shortlisted authors, including Indian novelist Kiran Desai, who won in 2006 and Britain's Andrew Miller, to claim the £50,000 ($65,500) award at a ceremony in London.
Szalay had previously been shortlisted for the prestigious literary honour in 2016 for his last work, 'All That Man Is'.
His sixth novel, 'Flesh' is another unflattering exploration of masculinity, using sparse prose to track the Hungarian protagonist from military service in his home country to working for the ultra-wealthy in London. His tormented life includes affairs with older women and fighting in Iraq.
The five judges considered 135 books to crown one the best work of long-form fiction written in English and published in the UK or Ireland between October 1, 2024 and September 30, 2025.
Among the six shortlisted works, one kept dominating the conversation, according to chair of the judges Roddy Doyle.
He called 'Flesh' a 'singular' and 'extraordinary' novel. 'We had never read anything quite like it. It is, in many ways, a dark book but it is a joy to read', said Doyle, a writer and winner of the 1993 Booker Prize.
The judging panel also included actor Sarah Jessica Parker alongside authors Ayobami Adebayo and Kiley Reid as well as critic and writer Chris Power.
In an interview with the Booker Prize organisation after his novel was longlisted, Szalay said he knew he wanted to write a book that began with Hungary, ended with England and that explored 'the cultural and economic divides that characterise' contemporary Europe.
'Writing about a Hungarian immigrant at the time when Hungary joined the EU seemed like an obvious way to go', he said.
Szalay triumphed over favourites Desai and Miller.
Desai was shortlisted for 'The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny', a nearly 700-page novel and her first work since winning the Booker in 2006 for 'The Inheritance of Loss'.
Miller, who had also previously been shortlisted for the award, was considered for 'The Land In Winter'.

The other shortlisted novels this year were Susan Choi's 'Flashlight', Katie Kitamura's 'Audition' and Ben Markovits's 'The Rest of Our Lives'.
Last year's prize was won by British writer Samantha Harvey for her short novel, 'Orbital', following six astronauts as they contemplate Earth from the International Space Station.
Harvey presented this year's Booker Prize to Szalay.
Born in Montreal, Canada, Szalay grew up in London and now lives in Vienna. He is the author of six works of fiction.
In addition to the 50,000-pound ($65,000) prize for the winner, as well as a 2,500-pound awards to each of the shortlisted authors and translators, the writers also gain a boost in popularity and benefit from increased book sales.
'Even though my father is Hungarian, I never felt entirely at home in Hungary. I suppose, I’m always a bit of an outsider there and living away from the UK and London for so many years I also had a similar feeling about London', Szalay said.
'At the end of the novel, we don't know what the protagonist, Istvan, looks like but this never feels like a lack; quite the opposite', said Doyle.
'Somehow, it's the absence of words — or the absence of Istvan's words — that allow us to know Istvan.
'Early in the book, we know that he cries because the person he's with tells him not to; later in life, we know he's balding because he envies another man's hair; we know he grieves because, for several pages, there are no words at all.
'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, Szalay, is inviting the reader to fill the space, to observe — almost to create — the character with him.
'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'.
Szalay is not the only writer of Hungarian heritage to have won a Booker prize as Laszlo Krasznahorkai, who won this year's Nobel Prize in Literature, won the International Booker Prize in 2015.
Previous winners of the Booker Prize include Salman Rushdie, KazuoIshiguro, Margaret Atwood and Hilary Mantel. — Agencies