2026 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction (longlist)
2025 Booker Prize
2025 Kirkus Prize for Fiction (finalist)
WINNER OF THE 2025 BOOKER PRIZE AND A NATIONAL BESTSELLER
Finalist for the Kirkus Prize | Longlisted for the Carnegie Medal for Excellence
From ‘the shrewdest writer on contemporary masculinity we have’ (Esquire), a ‘captivating...hypnotic...virtuosic’ (The Baffler) novel about a man whose life veers off course due to a series of unforeseen circumstances.
Teenaged István lives with his mother in a quiet apartment complex in Hungary. Shy and new in town, he is a stranger to the social rituals practiced by his classmates and is soon isolated, drawn instead into a series of events that leave him forever a stranger to peers, his mother, and himself. In the years that follow, István is born along by the goodwill, or self-interest, of strangers, charting a rocky yet upward trajectory that lands him further from his childhood, and the defining events that abruptly ended it, than he could possibly have imagined.
A collection of intimate moments over the course of decades, Flesh chronicles a man at odds with himself—estranged from and by the circumstances and demands of a life not entirely under his control and the roles that he is asked to play. Shadowed by the specter of past tragedy and the apathy of modernity, the tension between István and all that alienates him hurtles forward until sudden tragedy again throws life as he knows it in jeopardy.
‘Spare and detached on the page, lush in resonance beyond it’ (NPR), Flesh traces the imperceptible but indelible contours of unresolved trauma and its aftermath amid the precarity and violence of an ever-globalizing Europe with incisive insight, unyielding pathos, and startling humanity.
Genre: Literary Fiction
Finalist for the Kirkus Prize | Longlisted for the Carnegie Medal for Excellence
From ‘the shrewdest writer on contemporary masculinity we have’ (Esquire), a ‘captivating...hypnotic...virtuosic’ (The Baffler) novel about a man whose life veers off course due to a series of unforeseen circumstances.
Teenaged István lives with his mother in a quiet apartment complex in Hungary. Shy and new in town, he is a stranger to the social rituals practiced by his classmates and is soon isolated, drawn instead into a series of events that leave him forever a stranger to peers, his mother, and himself. In the years that follow, István is born along by the goodwill, or self-interest, of strangers, charting a rocky yet upward trajectory that lands him further from his childhood, and the defining events that abruptly ended it, than he could possibly have imagined.
A collection of intimate moments over the course of decades, Flesh chronicles a man at odds with himself—estranged from and by the circumstances and demands of a life not entirely under his control and the roles that he is asked to play. Shadowed by the specter of past tragedy and the apathy of modernity, the tension between István and all that alienates him hurtles forward until sudden tragedy again throws life as he knows it in jeopardy.
‘Spare and detached on the page, lush in resonance beyond it’ (NPR), Flesh traces the imperceptible but indelible contours of unresolved trauma and its aftermath amid the precarity and violence of an ever-globalizing Europe with incisive insight, unyielding pathos, and startling humanity.
Genre: Literary Fiction
Praise for this book
"A superb novel, written with great terse authority and allure: mordant, knowing and disturbingly wise." - William Boyd
"In Istvan 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
"This is a marvellous novel. Compelling and elegant, merciless and poignant. David Szalay is an extraordinary writer." - Tessa Hadley
"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
"Flesh is a wonderful novel - so brilliant and wise on chance, love, sex, money." - David Nicholls
"In Istvan 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
"This is a marvellous novel. Compelling and elegant, merciless and poignant. David Szalay is an extraordinary writer." - Tessa Hadley
"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
"Flesh is a wonderful novel - so brilliant and wise on chance, love, sex, money." - David Nicholls
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