Key themes
- Emotional detachment and its cost — across a whole life
- Class in contemporary Europe — the distance between poverty and wealth
- The passive protagonist as a formal choice about how men live
About this book
Following one Hungarian-British man — István — from his teenage years on a Budapest housing estate through decades of life in the economic shadow of London's super-rich, Szalay's spare, propulsive novel tracks a man who is emotionally detached yet persistently unravelled by events beyond his control. Winner of the Booker Prize 2025.
Published in 2025, Flesh won the Booker Prize at a ceremony on 10 November 2025. Szalay was previously shortlisted for the Booker in 2016 for All That Man Is.
Discussion questions
- István is emotionally detached — he rarely feels what the moments of his life seem to demand. What is Szalay saying through this detachment — about men, about contemporary life, about numbness as a survival strategy?
- The novel spans decades and many locations — Hungary, London, Vienna. How does Szalay create a sense of a whole life from this breadth — and does anything accumulate?
- Flesh won the Booker Prize, with the judges saying they had 'never read anything quite like it.' What is singular about it — and is the singularity of the style or the content?
- The novel's spare prose says very little directly. How does Szalay generate meaning from restraint — and what does he leave to the reader to supply?
- Previous Booker winners have often been large, ambitious novels. Flesh is compact. What does the prize say about what literature is currently for — and does the award change how you read it?
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