Nearly a decade after his 2016 novel, \u201cAll That Man Is,\u201d was passed over for the Booker Prize, David Szalay has taken home gold with his latest work, \u201cFlesh.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cFlesh,\u201d Szalay\u2019s sixth novel, follows Istv\u00e1n, a socially isolated Hungarian teen who through circumstances beyond his control is thrust into London\u2019s upper echelon. In the coming decades, he finds himself caught between his traumatic past and growing appetite for prestige. Szalay is the first Hungarian British writer<\/a> to receive the prestigious award, which he accepted at Monday\u2019s ceremony in London with visible surprise. <\/p>\n \u201cI felt \u2018Flesh\u2019 is quite a risky novel, a risky book. It felt risky to me writing it,\u201d Szalay said in his acceptance speech<\/a>. <\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019s very important that the publisher \u2014 the novel-making community, if I can put it like that \u2014 embraces that sense of risk rather than shuns it,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n In the judges\u2019 view, Szalay\u2019s risks more than paid off, yielding an \u201cextraordinary, singular novel.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cThe judges discussed the six books on the shortlist for more than five hours,\u201d said Roddy Doyle, chair of the judging panel. \u201cThe book we kept coming back to, the one that stood out from the other great novels, was \u2018Flesh\u2019 \u2014 because of its singularity.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe had never read anything quite like it. It is, in many ways, a dark book but it is a joy to read,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n Despite chronicling decades of Istv\u00e1n\u2019s life, \u201cFlesh,\u201d through narrative omissions, leaves readers with an inscrutable protagonist they nonetheless remain deeply invested in.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think I\u2019ve read a novel that uses the white space on the page so well,\u201d Doyle said, adding that in \u201cFlesh,\u201d \u201cEvery word matters; the spaces between the words matter.\u201d<\/p>\n The Booker Prize is an annual award given to the best English-language novel published in the United Kingdom and Ireland. <\/p>\n \u201cFlesh\u201d triumphed over five other shortlisted books: Kiran Desai\u2019s \u201cThe Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny,\u201d Andrew Miller\u2019s \u201cThe Land in Winter,\u201d Susan Choi\u2019s \u201cFlashlight,\u201d<\/a> Katie Kitamura\u2019s \u201cAudition\u201d and Ben Markovits\u2019 \u201cThe Rest of Our Lives.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cFlesh\u201d has also received praise from writer Zadie Smith<\/a> and singer Dua Lipa, who selected the novel for her Service95 Book Club. <\/p>\n