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Flesh

WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE 2025

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Flesh

Written by: David Szalay
Narrated by: Daniel Weyman
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.


**WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE 2025**

Through chance, luck and choice, one man’s life takes him from a modest apartment in Hungary to the elite society of London – in this captivating new novel about the forces that make and break our lives

Fifteen-year-old István lives with his mother in a quiet apartment complex in Hungary. New to the town and shy, he becomes isolated, with his neighbour – a married woman – as his only companion. When a clandestine relationship begins between them, his life spirals out of control.

As the years pass, István moves from the army to the circles of London’s elite. His competing impulses for love, intimacy, status and wealth win him unimaginable riches, until they threaten to undo him completely.

‘Brilliant and wise on chance, love, sex, money’ David Nicholls

‘One of the most astonishing books I’ve ever read’ Dua Lipa

’So much searing insight into the way we live now’ Observer

‘I was tearing through Flesh, I never once slowed down’ Jennette McCurdy

‘Brilliance on every page’ Samantha Harvey

‘Hugely entertaining, gripping like a thriller’ The Times

© David Szalay 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025

 Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Psychological

Critic Reviews

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, author of Orbital)
Flesh is a wonderful novel – so brilliant and wise on chance, love, sex, money (David Nicholls)
A superb novel, written with great terse authority and allure: mordant, knowing and disturbingly wise (William Boyd)
This is a marvellous novel. Compelling and elegant, merciless and poignant. David Szalay is an extraordinary writer (Tessa Hadley)
I hope David Szalay wins the Booker this year... Flesh is a masterpiece, told with virtuosic economy... Pure brilliance from the first to the (devastating) last sentence (India Knight)
Refreshing, illuminating and true… a moving work of art with a plot that compels and surprises and devastates (Financial Times)
[A] compulsive look at wealth and power, love and sex… Szalay has that rare ability to convey entire galaxies in the sparest writing
Flesh…has ensnared me… It’s rare to find prose this spare that doesn’t feel affect, but Szalay handles surface and depth with skill, as only great novelists can. Flesh is a revelatory novel
Hypnotically tense and compelling… An astonishingly moving portrait of a man’s life (Booker Judges, 2025)
In István 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, author of Clear)
All stars
Most relevant
I was a little sceptical because of the hype surrounding it after the booker prize win last year but it wasn't bad. It is good in parts, makes you care for the protagonist but at times the narrative is a little off pace and derisive. I liked how the characters are etched out and the journey it covers from teenage to midlife. Overall a decent read.

A decent book.

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back to square one! Great reading. characters were very well sculpted. simple and profound. lovely.

I don't know.

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fabulously depicted the life long journey of human that's mostly about flesh lustfully and sentimentally

the emotional presentation of the protagonist is the most human in all ways possible

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I understand that for me personally the award winning books are usually hit or miss. I picked up this book.. expecting to fall in love with it. However, I was disappointed. Am not a literary critique.. as a regular reader.. I did not find it too exciting. Am trying hard to think of what really stood out for me.. I think it's a dialogue thats most repeated in the book..."I don't know". 🤷🏽‍♀️

Don't get the hype

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Flesh is a story of István. His journey from Hungary to England and back to Hungary.
István had relationships with many women right from his teenage. May be that's why the name of novel is 'Flesh'.
As said, it is a rags to riches story, but more than that it's a story of a common man surrendered to destiny. Good listen.
.... was it worth winning Booker? well .. that's a perspective.

Flesh - a different read

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