British-Hungarian writer David Szalay has won the 2025 Booker Prize for fiction for his novel Flesh, a story about a Hungarian émigré who makes and loses a fortune. The 51-year-old beat five other finalists to take the annual award for the best English-language novel published in the UK or Ireland, which carries a £50,000 prize and typically boosts sales and profile.
Written in spare prose, Flesh follows a working-class, taciturn Hungarian across decades — from a teenage relationship with an older woman to life as a struggling immigrant in Britain and later working for the ultra-wealthy in London. Szalay said when the book was longlisted that he wanted to write “a book with a Hungarian end and an English end,” reflecting his experience living between the two countries and exploring contemporary Europe’s cultural and economic divides.
The judging panel included former Booker winner Roddy Doyle (chair), actor Sarah Jessica Parker and Nigerian author Ayobami Adebayo. In a statement, the panel called Flesh “a meditation on class, power, intimacy, migration and masculinity,” and “a compelling portrait of one man, and the formative experiences that can reverberate across a lifetime.” Doyle added that they had “never read anything quite like it,” praising Szalay’s use of white space as inviting the reader to observe and help create the character.
Szalay was born in Canada, raised in the United Kingdom and now lives in Vienna. Flesh is his sixth work of fiction; he was previously shortlisted for the Booker in 2016 for All That Man Is, a series of stories about nine very different men.
This year’s other Booker finalists were Andrew Miller (The Land in Winter), Kiran Desai (The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny), Susan Choi (Flashlight), Katie Kitamura (Audition) and Ben Markovits (The Rest of Our Lives).
The 2025 International Booker Prize, awarded to a book translated into English, was won by Indian author Banu Mushtaq for Heart Lamp and her translator Deepa Bhasthi. The international prize is shared equally between author and translator.
Edited by: Saim Dušan Inayatullah
