The winner of one of the world’s most prestigious literary awards, the Booker Prize, has been announced. The 2025 winner is Hungarian-British writer David Szalai. This was announced on the official website of the prize.
“Written in concise prose and spanning several decades – from a Hungarian housing estate to the mansions of the London elite – “Flesh” is a dynamic novel centered on an emotionally distant man torn apart by a series of events beyond his comprehension. The novel is the sixth work of fiction by David Szalay, who was previously nominated for the Booker Prize in 2016, the jury explained their choice.
The novel “Flesh” was selected from a shortlist of six publications. This year’s long list also includes Ukrainian-born Canadian writer Maria Reva with her novel “Endling”.
The head of the jury, Booker Prize winner Roddy Doyle, noted during a press conference that all the works on the shortlist are “brilliantly human”:
“It may sound a bit trite, but I’ve read novels where I’ve often thought to myself: “If there was a little less show-off, there would be a good story”, and I don’t think any of these books show-off”.
David Szalay will receive £50,000 and a trophy, which will be presented to him by last year’s winner Samantha Harvey.
The Booker Prize (The Booker Prize) is one of the most famous literary awards in the world. It was established in 1969, and was initially awarded to authors from the Commonwealth countries for novels written in English.
David Szalay is a Canadian-Hungarian-British writer. He was born in 1974 in Montreal to a Canadian mother and a Hungarian father. After the outbreak of the civil war in Lebanon, where the family moved from Canada, they were forced to leave the country and moved to London. There, Szalay graduated from Sussex House School, and later received his education at Oxford University. The author’s most famous works include the novels “London and the South-East”, “Innocent”, “Spring” and “Flesh” (2025).
