Flesh

WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE 2025

De: David Szalay

Narrado por: Daniel Weyman

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

Reseñas de la Crítica

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)

The Voice Actor Was Incredible!

The voice actor made the whole book much much easier to enjoy. Great work of literary art as well. Well deserved booker prize.

Different

I liked the writing and story. The protagonist is not necessarily a nice person yet I wanted to know more about the man.

a pedestrian grind

Ugh! Slow and simple - struggling to understand why this book did as well as it did. Far from complex, slightly unbelievable and frustratingly simple. Perhaps yes- that puts you in the protagonist’s headspace so clever literarily but oeff it was hard

It was ok…. lol

This books not for everyone. But it was beautifully written , I enjoyed it highly recommend.

What was not said

Interesting. Very paired back style. Not sure if I will listen to or read another book by this author. Probably not.