Flesh by David Szalay

Flesh by David Szalay

**WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE 2025** 'A masterpiece, told with virtuosic economy… Pure brilliance from the first to the (devastating) last sentence’ India Knight 'Brilliance on every page' Samantha Harvey 'Spare, visceral, urgent, compelling. This book doesn't f**k around' Gary Stevenson ‘So brilliant and wise on chance, love, sex, money' David Nicholls Through chance, luck and choice, one man’s life takes him from a modest apartment in Hungary to the elite society of London – in this captivating new novel about the forces that make and break our lives 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. As these encounters shift into a clandestine relationship, István’s life spirals out of control. Years later, rising through the ranks from the army to the elite circles of London's super-rich, he navigates the twenty-first century's tides of money and power. Torn between love, intimacy, status, and wealth, his newfound riches threaten to undo him completely. ‘How do I get out of a reading slump? This is the book to do that’ Rhianna Dhillon, BBC Radio 4 'A revelatory novel' Sunday Times 'So much searing insight into the way we live now' Observer ‘Refreshing, illuminating and true’ Financial Times 'Compelling and elegant, merciless and poignant' Tessa Hadley 'One of the year’s best novels to date' Daily Mail ‘Utterly engrossing and I read it all in a day’ 5* reader review ‘I was hooked and tried to read this book with any spare moment that I had' 5* reader review A ‘Best Book of 2025’ in the Guardian, Observer, Financial Times, Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail

This is a marvellous novelCompelling and elegant, merciless and poignant. David Szalay is an extraordinary writer -- Tessa Hadley
A superb novel, written with great terse authority and allure: mordant, knowing and disturbingly wise -- William Boyd
In István David Szalay has created a modern existential antihero in the grand tradition of Camus and Dostoevsky. Amid the random accidents and desultory decisions that shape his life, and come to feel like fate, he is at once a cool observer and a towering presence. Taut, spare and perfectly structured, Flesh reads like a gripping thriller which slowly gathers to itself the emotional power of classical tragedy -- Carys Davies, author of Clear
With exquisite control and precision and insight, David Szalay renders lost men that you cannot forget -- Rachel Kushner
David Szalay writes with voluptuous authority. He possesses voice rather than merely style... He is an exceedingly gifted writer who can move in any direction he wishes... Mr. Szalay’s prose is exacting without being fussy... Mr. Szalay’s own stream of perception never falters in its sensitivity and probity * New York Times *

David Szalay is the author of five previous works of fiction: Spring, The Innocent, London and the South-East, for which he was awarded the Betty Trask and Geoffrey Faber Memorial prizes, All That Man Is, for which he was awarded the Gordon Burn prize and Plimpton Prize for Fiction, and shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, and Turbulence, which won the Edge Hill Prize. Born in Canada, he grew up in London, and now lives in Vienna. His work has been translated into over twenty languages.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780224099783
ISBN 10	0224099787
Title	Flesh
Author	David Szalay
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Vintage Publishing
Year published	2025-03-06
Number of pages	368
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable