The UK’s most prestigious fiction award for 2025 has been announced.
This year’s fiction award is awarded to a Hungarian-British writer David Szalay, for his sixth novel, 'Flesh.'
'The Booker Prize,' founded in 1969, has established an image of transforming writers’ careers, since it is open to English-language novels from all over the world.
The winner of the Booker Prize 2025 beat five other finalists, including Andrew Miller (“The Land in Winter”) and Indian author Kiran Desai (“The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny”).
David Szalay will take home the widely respected literary award in English literature, along with a hefty prize of £50,000 and a major increase in sales and public recognition.
Szalay’s Flesh was picked up from the 153 submissions by a panel of judges that included Irish writer Roddy Doyle and Sex and the City star Sarah Jessica Parker.
Doyle remarked that after a five-hour meeting, ‘Flesh’—a book ‘about living, and the strangeness of living’—emerged as the judges’ unanimous choice.
David Szalay upon receiving the coveted award at the London’s Old Billingsgate, thanked the judges for the prize of ‘Flesh.’
He recalled his editor asking "whether she could imagine a novel called ‘Flesh’ winning the Booker Prize."You have your answer, Szalay, while delivering the acceptance speech.
He revealed the idea behind writing ‘Flesh,’ saying, “The story grew from simple, fundamental ingredients. He knew he wanted a book that was partly Hungarian and partly English and was about life as a physical experience.”
‘Flesh’ explores the themes of masculinity, migration, class, and power.
Written in spare prose, ‘Flesh’ is an unconventional story of a young man’s ascent from hardship to prosperity.
It follows Istvan, who emerges from working-class origins in Hungary, struggles as an immigrant in Britain, and finally ascends to wealth and prestige in London high society.
