David Szalay becomes first Hungarian-British author to win the Booker Prize

Author David Szalay has become the first Hungarian-British author to win the Booker Prize.

His novel Flesh, a rags-to-riches tale exploring class and power, was described as an “extraordinary, singular novel” by chairman of the judges, Roddy Doyle.

An extract from the book, performed by rapper Stormzy, was screened at the London ceremony, which was attended by celebrity guests including The White Lotus actor Jason Isaacs, comedian Sara Pascoe, Gavin And Stacey’s Ruth Jones and veteran comedian Sir Lenny Henry.

Szalay, who was previously shortlisted in 2016 for All That Man Is, has received £50,000 and a trophy, presented to him by last year’s winner Samantha Harvey.

The author’s sixth work of fiction, a meditation on power, tracks the life of teenage Istvan from Hungary who eventually moves from the army to the company of London’s super-rich.

Szalay said: “This wasn’t necessarily a very easy book to write. I started on it just after abandoning another novel and so there was a very great sense of pressure, as you might imagine, to make this book good because, I think while it might be okay to abandon one novel, to abandon two would be quite difficult for me to deal with psychologically.

“And I didn’t always cope that well with the pressure. I didn’t always cope that graciously and that wisely with it.”

Szalay, who was born in Canada and has lived in the UK, Lebanon, Hungary, and Vienna, previously told BBC Radio 4’s Front Row that he wanted to write a book “that stretched between Hungary and London and involved a character who was not quite at home in either place”.

Former Booker Prize winner Doyle said: “The judges discussed the six books on the shortlist for more than five hours.

“The book we kept coming back to, the one that stood out from the other great novels, was Flesh – because of its singularity. We had never read anything quite like it. It is, in many ways, a dark book but it is a joy to read.

“At the end of the novel, we don’t know what the protagonist, Istvan, looks like but this never feels like a lack; quite the opposite.

“Somehow, it’s the absence of words – or the absence of Istvan’s words – that allow us to know Istvan.

“Early in the book, we know that he cries because the person he’s with tells him not to; later in life, we know he’s balding because he envies another man’s hair; we know he grieves because, for several pages, there are no words at all.

“I don’t think I’ve read a novel that uses the white space on the page so well. It’s as if the author, David Szalay, is inviting the reader to fill the space, to observe – almost to create – the character with him.

“The writing is spare and that is its great strength. Every word matters; the spaces between the words matter.

“The book is about living and the strangeness of living, and, as we read, as we turn the pages, we’re glad we’re alive and reading – experiencing – this extraordinary, singular novel.”

The panel, which included Sex And The City star Sarah Jessica Parker, considered 153 books and was looking for the best work of long-form fiction by writers of any nationality, written in English and published in the UK and/or Ireland between October 1 2024 and September 30 2025.

Szalay is not the only writer of Hungarian heritage to have won a Booker prize as Laszlo Krasznahorkai, who won this year’s Nobel Prize in Literature, won the International Booker Prize in 2015.

Previous winners of the Booker Prize include Sir Salman Rushdie, Kazuo Ishiguro, Margaret Atwood and Dame Hilary Mantel.