Celebrating outstanding fiction for over five decades, the Booker Prize highlights the most compelling literary fiction each year that is written in English and published in the UK and Ireland. A panel of judges selects a longlist and a shortlist before choosing their final winner. Congratulations to author David Szalay, this year's winner!
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"At the end of the novel, we don’t know what the protagonist, István, looks like but this never feels like a lack; quite the opposite. Somehow, it’s the absence of words – or the absence of István’s words – that allow us to know István. 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." —Roddy Doyle, Chair of the 2025 Booker Prize judges
The Booker Prize 2025 shortlist
The Booker Prize 2025 longlist
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