British-Hungarian writer David Szalay has won the 2025 Booker Prize for his novel Flesh, which the judges called “extraordinary” and “a very special book”.
Flesh follows an alluring, enigmatic and emotionally detached man as he moves through different phases of life — from a Hungarian housing estate to the world of the ultra‑rich in London. The novel’s single central character, Istvan, appears in three stages that critics say form a compelling portrait of modern masculinity.
Roddy Doyle, who chaired the judging panel, praised the book’s singularity and spare style. “It’s just not like any other book,” he said. “It’s a dark book, but we all found it a joy to read.” Doyle highlighted Szalay’s use of white space and minimal dialogue, noting moments such as grief being suggested by a few blank pages. Gaby Wood, chief executive of the Booker Prize Foundation, described the judges’ view that Flesh is spare, disciplined, urgent, honest and heartbreaking, and said Szalay “breaks new ground”.
The panel included actress Sarah Jessica Parker. The book has attracted high‑profile champions: Dua Lipa chose it for her book club and interviewed Szalay at the New York Public Library, and Stormzy recorded an extract that was played at the Booker ceremony in London.
Szalay told the BBC he felt “a bit dazed” after winning and that it would take time for the news to sink in. He collected the £50,000 prize. Flesh is his sixth novel; he was previously shortlisted for the Booker in 2016 for All That Man Is.
Reviews have been widely positive. The Guardian called Flesh a “brilliantly spare portrait of a man” and “a thrilling exploration of what it means to be alive”, while the Sunday Times praised Szalay’s use of one character to map three stages of modern life. Booker organisers described the novel as “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”.
The judges spent more than five hours discussing the six shortlisted books before choosing the winner. The other shortlisted novels were:
– Susan Choi — Flashlight
– Kiran Desai — The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny
– Katie Kitamura — Audition
– Ben Markovits — The Rest of Our Lives
– Andrew Miller — The Land in Winter
The Booker Prize is one of the UK’s most prestigious fiction awards, open to novels written in English. Past winners include Salman Rushdie, Margaret Atwood, Bernardine Evaristo, Hilary Mantel and Douglas Stuart.
