Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on November 10, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 21, 2026
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David Szalay wins the 2025 Booker Prize for 'Flesh', becoming the first Hungarian-British author to achieve this honor. The novel explores themes of class and identity.
LONDON (Reuters) -David Szalay won the 2025 Booker Prize for his novel 'Flesh' on Monday, becoming the first Hungarian-British author to win one of top awards in the English-speaking world.
Written in spare prose - characterised by brevity and a lack of unnecessary detail - the book follows a man caught in a series of events beyond his control over decades. It charts his rise from a housing estate in Hungary to the mansions of London's super-rich.
"A meditation on class, power, intimacy, migration and masculinity, Flesh is a compelling portrait of one man, and the formative experiences that can reverberate across a lifetime," organisers of the award ceremony in London said in a statement.
In addition to the 50,000-pound ($67,000) prize for the winner, as well as a 2,500-pound awards to each of the shortlisted authors and translators, the writers also gain a boost in popularity and benefit from increased book sales.
"Even though my father is Hungarian, I never felt entirely at home in Hungary. I suppose, I’m always a bit of an outsider there and living away from the UK and London for so many years I also had a similar feeling about London," Szalay told BBC Radio.
"I really wanted to write a book that stretched between Hungary and London and involved a character who was not quite at home in either place."
The novel was the Canadian-born author's sixth work of fiction. He was shortlisted in 2016 for his book 'All That Man Is' which told the story of nine men at various life stages.
"We had never read anything quite like it. It is, in many ways, a dark book but it is a joy to read," Roddy Doyle, chair of judges this year, said in the statement shared by the organisers.
"I don’t think I’ve read a novel that uses the white space on the page so well. It’s as if the author ... is inviting the reader to fill the space, to observe – almost to create – the character with him."
($1 = 0.7451 pounds)
(Reporting by Muvija M; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)
The Booker Prize is a prestigious literary award presented annually for the best original novel written in the English language. It recognizes outstanding literary achievement and significantly boosts the winner's visibility and book sales.
A novel is a long narrative work of fiction that tells a story about human experiences through interconnected characters and events. It typically explores themes, emotions, and conflicts.
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