The 2025 Booker Prize has crowned Flesh by David Szalay as the year’s best novel, marking a defining moment in modern fiction. Szalay, known for his minimalist style and sharp psychological insight, triumphed over a strong shortlist that included Kiran Desai, Andrew Miller, Susan Choi, Katie Kitamura, and Ben Markovits. Szalay, 51, received the prestigious £50,000 prize and a trophy from last year’s winner, Samantha Harvey. For readers and critics alike, this win signals the return of stripped-down storytelling where simplicity in language reveals the complexity of life.

The Story Within Flesh

At its heart, Flesh follows Istvan, a shy and awkward Hungarian teenager whose journey from poverty to privilege and eventual downfall mirrors the volatile human search for identity and meaning. The novel opens in a bleak housing project, where István, at fifteen, enters a troubling relationship with a married woman twice his age. What begins as a misguided search for affection turns into a series of events that spiral out of his control: a fight, a man’s death, a prison sentence, and an unrelenting confrontation with guilt. 

Years later, Istvan’s life evolves through shades of irony and ambition. He becomes a soldier in Iraq, a private security guard, and later, a chauffeur for a wealthy London family. In a twist of fate, he marries into the upper class he once served, but happiness eludes him. The wealth, status, and comfort that once seemed out of reach only deepen his loneliness. Szalay’s storytelling feels brutally honest. Through Istvan’s rise and fall, Flesh dissects modern capitalism, class mobility, and the fragile moral compass that defines human ambition.

Why Flesh Resonated with the Judges

The Booker panel praised Szalay’s mastery of restraint. “Using only the sparest of prose, this hypnotically tense and compelling book becomes an astonishingly moving portrait of a man’s life,”  This stylistic economy is what makes Flesh so powerful. Every line cuts deep, every silence speaks. Szalay doesn’t rely on dramatic flourishes; he trusts the quiet weight of his characters’ choices.

A Life Shaped by Movement and Reflection

David Szalay’s own story mirrors the restless movement that defines his characters. Born in Montreal to a Hungarian father and Canadian mother, he spent his early years in Lebanon before his family relocated to London following the outbreak of the Lebanese Civil War. He studied at the University of Oxford, worked in London’s sales industry, and eventually moved to Brussels and Hungary before settling in Vienna. These varied experiences across cities, languages, and cultures have deeply influenced his view of identity and dislocation. 

Szalay first gained attention with his debut novel London and the South-East, which won the Betty Trask Award and the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize. His later works Innocent (2009), Spring (2011), All That Man Is (2016), and Turbulence (2018) established him as a leading voice in contemporary European fiction. All That Man Is was shortlisted for the 2016 Man Booker Prize and praised for capturing “the super-sadness of modern Europe.” Yet it is Flesh that brings him full circle, combining his minimalist language with an unflinching look at the contradictions of success, class, and moral decay. Readers find in Flesh a mirror of modern existence: the quiet despair beneath luxury, the hunger for belonging, and the haunting question of what it truly means to live with one’s choices.

A Win for Minimalism and Meaning

David Szalay’s Flesh is not just a winner; it is a reminder of what great literature can do. It strips away artifice to reveal truth, urging readers to confront the vulnerability beneath ambition. In an age of noise and spectacle, Flesh stands out for its silence, for the spaces between words that let us feel the ache of being human. With Flesh, David Szalay cements his place among the most insightful storytellers of our time, a writer who understands that even in the simplest sentence, the entire weight of a life can be found.