If you follow the Booker Prize awards, you might know David Szalay from previous years. This time, he has finally taken home this year's Booker Prize for his novel Flesh, which judges describe as "extraordinary" and "a very special book."
For those unfamiliar with the book, the story follows Istvan, an enigmatic and emotionally distant man, through different stages of his life, from a Hungarian housing estate to the world of London's ultra-rich.
"What we particularly liked about Flesh was its singularity," says Roddy Doyle, chair of the judging panel. "It's a dark book, but we all found it a joy to read." Actress Sarah Jessica Parker also served as a judge, and the novel has been championed by Dua Lipa and Stormzy, who recorded an extract for a short film at the ceremony.
Flesh: A Novel
Judges and critics alike praise Szalay's pared-down style and use of white space. Doyle highlightes how the book conveys grief through a few blank pages and describes the dialogue, or absence of it, as "superb."
Flesh is described as "a meditation on class, power, intimacy, migration, and masculinity," offering a compelling portrait of one man's formative experiences. Szalay, who was previously nominated for the Booker in 2016 for All That Man Is, admitted he felt a little dazed after winning.
He collected £50,000 for the award, which is the UK's most prestigious fiction prize. The judges spent more than five hours deliberating before unanimously agreeing that Flesh stood out among the other shortlisted novels, including works by Susan Choi, Kiran Desai, Katie Kitamura, Ben Markovits, and Andrew Miller.