Overview
- Szalay received the Booker trophy and £50,000 at a ceremony at Old Billingsgate in London, presented by last year’s winner Samantha Harvey.
- Chair Roddy Doyle said the panel had “never read anything quite like it,” calling the novel dark yet joyful to read.
- Flesh follows István, a Hungarian man whose sparely told life story probes masculinity, class, migration and power.
- The novel topped a shortlist featuring Kiran Desai, Andrew Miller, Susan Choi, Katie Kitamura and Ben Markovits; Szalay was previously shortlisted in 2016.
- In his acceptance remarks, Szalay emphasized fiction’s capacity for aesthetic, formal and moral risk, as celebrity support from Dua Lipa and Stormzy helped widen the book’s reach and likely sales.