Literature

The Latest Booker Prize is awarded to Author David Szalay

The Booker Prize is one of the most prestigious literary awards and was recently awarded to David Szalay for his book "Flesh".

Alma Brown

03 Dec 2025 — 3 min read

On Monday, November 10th, the annual Booker Prize ceremony was held and announced David Szalay as that year's recipient, also becoming the first Hungarian-British author to win the award. He won the award for his sixth fiction work, Flesh. The award and prize money were presented to him by last year's winner, Samantha Harvey.

David Szalay at the Booker Prize Ceremony

The Booker Prize began in 1969, previously known as the 'Booker Prize for Fiction' and the 'Man Booker Prize'. Each year, the prize is given to the best single literary work of sustained fiction that was written in the English language while also being originally published in the United Kingdom or Ireland. The winner receives £50,000 alongside international recognition.

This year's judging panel included— 1993 Booker Prize winner Roddy Doyle; novelist Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀; award-winning actor, producer, and publisher Sarah Jessica Parker; writer, broadcaster, and literary critic Chris Power; and New York Times bestselling author Kiley Reid. 153 books were considered that had been published between October 1st, 2024, and September 30th, 2025.

The panel judge, Roddy Doyle, described Flesh as a book, "about living and the strangeness of living." Szalay himself stated that he wanted to write, "about life as a physical experience, about what it's like to be a living body in the world."

The story follows the life of István, a Hungarian immigrant, from his teenage years to old age, his relationship with an older woman throughout time and his experience as a struggling immigrant who comes to later live in London high society. Doyle also noted that István is a working-class man, a group overlooked in fiction.

After five hours of delegation amongst the panel judges of which short list title would be the Booker winner, they kept coming back to Flesh because of its singularity. They said, "We had never read anything quite like it. It is, in many ways, a dark book, but it is a joy to read," (Booker Prizes.)