Flesh by David Szalay
**WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE 2025** ‘Brilliant and wise on chance, love, sex, money’ David Nicholls ‘Anyone can pick up Flesh and appreciate it’ Jennette McCurdy ‘Brilliance on every page’ Samantha Harvey ‘So much searing insight into the way we live now’ Observer 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 becomes isolated, with his neighbour – a married woman – as his only companion. When a clandestine relationship begins between them, his life spirals out of control. As the years pass, István moves from the army to the circles of London’s elite. His competing impulses for love, intimacy, status and wealth win him unimaginable riches, until they threaten to undo him completely. ‘An astonishingly moving portrait of a man’s life’ Booker Prize Judges, 2025 ‘A revelatory novel’ Sunday Times ‘Pure brilliance from the first to the (devastating) last sentence’ India Knight ‘Refreshing, illuminating and true’ Financial Times ‘One of the most astonishing books I’ve ever read’ Dua Lipa ‘Hugely entertaining, gripping like a thriller’ The Times ‘Visceral and compelling’ Gary Stevenson ‘Exciting, propulsive, emotional’ Sarah Jessica Parker *A BOOK OF THE YEAR for the Guardian, Observer, Financial Times, Sunday Times, Independent, GQ and Daily Telegraph*
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 *
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 six works of fiction, including 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 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 more than thirty 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 |