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Flesh

WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE 2025

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Flesh

By: David Szalay
Narrated by: Daniel Weyman
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**WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE 2025**

Through chance, luck and choice, one man’s life takes him from a modest apartment in Hungary to the elite society of London – in this captivating new novel about the forces that make and break our lives

Fifteen-year-old István lives with his mother in a quiet apartment complex in Hungary. New to the town and shy, he becomes isolated, with his neighbour – a married woman – as his only companion. When a clandestine relationship begins between them, his life spirals out of control.

As the years pass, István moves from the army to the circles of London’s elite. His competing impulses for love, intimacy, status and wealth win him unimaginable riches, until they threaten to undo him completely.
‘Brilliant and wise on chance, love, sex, money’ David Nicholls
‘One of the most astonishing books I’ve ever read’ Dua Lipa
’So much searing insight into the way we live now’ Observer
‘I was tearing through Flesh, I never once slowed down’ Jennette McCurdy
‘Brilliance on every page’ Samantha Harvey
‘Hugely entertaining, gripping like a thriller’ The Times

© David Szalay 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025

 Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Psychological Money Heartfelt Tear-jerking
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Critic reviews

Flesh is at once intricate and spacious, it flows both fast and deep. There's brilliance on every page. Szalay is an ingenious conductor of time, and of the fates and forces that give shape to a life (Samantha Harvey, author of Orbital)
Flesh is a wonderful novel – so brilliant and wise on chance, love, sex, money (David Nicholls)
A superb novel, written with great terse authority and allure: mordant, knowing and disturbingly wise (William Boyd)
This is a marvellous novel. Compelling and elegant, merciless and poignant. David Szalay is an extraordinary writer (Tessa Hadley)
I hope David Szalay wins the Booker this year... Flesh is a masterpiece, told with virtuosic economy... Pure brilliance from the first to the (devastating) last sentence (India Knight)
Refreshing, illuminating and true… a moving work of art with a plot that compels and surprises and devastates (Financial Times)
[A] compulsive look at wealth and power, love and sex… Szalay has that rare ability to convey entire galaxies in the sparest writing
Flesh…has ensnared me… It’s rare to find prose this spare that doesn’t feel affect, but Szalay handles surface and depth with skill, as only great novelists can. Flesh is a revelatory novel
Hypnotically tense and compelling… An astonishingly moving portrait of a man’s life (Booker Judges, 2025)
In István David Szalay has created a modern existential antihero in the grand tradition of Camus and Dostoevsky. Amid the random accidents and desultory decisions that shape his life, and come to feel like fate, he is at once a cool observer and a towering presence. Taut, spare and perfectly structured, Flesh reads like a gripping thriller which slowly gathers to itself the emotional power of classical tragedy (Carys Davies, author of Clear)
All stars
Most relevant
I thought this book was just going to be about the sexual exploits of some guy… but, in fact it is more the story of a kids life into adulthood and beyond, and all what happens to him - the good and the very bad.

I listened on audio and it’s read very well, no over dramatics.

Would recommend to everyone, and am sure at least a part of this story will ring home with everyone, even if it’s just a well observed scene.

Not just carnal

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I love David Szalay’s writing and story-telling style and this is no exception. Literary page turners are hard to pull off but he does this in great style again with Flesh. Fans of Stanley Kubrick will recognise in Istvan’s tale a clever modern retelling of the story of Thackeray’s Barry Lyndon. The Audible narrator is perfect too.

A great read and listen

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I think I've missed something about this book and why there's so much hype? I found it really quite boring, its written in the simplest of forms with 'he said' and 'she said' throughout. No smilies, over use of adjectives as in most books and I think that was the point, but it actually just made it very boring and repetitive. Its just a long story about one mans life with the most part being quite dul!

Boring

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All the story's twists and turns were well narrated with the profoundly sad ending sounding a message only to be interpreted by the listener.

very well narrated

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Asks questions about the importance of the body over the mind. Clever and sharply observed.

Stark, clear prose.

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