David Szalay Awarded 2025 Booker Prize for Novel ‘Flesh‘
London, February 22, 2025 – David Szalay has won the 2025 Booker Prize for his novel Flesh, a work described as a “dark” and intensely physical exploration of contemporary existence. The proclamation marks a career high for the British author and solidifies his place among the UK’s leading literary voices.
The win is particularly significant for publisher Jonathan Cape, an imprint of Penguin, representing their tenth victory in the prize’s history – more than any other publisher.Last year’s winner, Samantha Harvey’s Orbital, was also published by Cape, continuing a streak of success for the imprint.The Booker Prize,a prestigious annual award recognizing the best novel written in English and published in the UK or Ireland,carries a £50,000 prize and significantly boosts the winner’s profile and sales.
Szalay revealed that Flesh emerged from a period of creative struggle, conceived after abandoning a four-year novel project in autumn 2020. He sought to create a work that would “somehow express the feeling I had that our existence is a physical experience before it is anything else,that all of its other aspects proceed from that physicality.” The novel delves into the raw realities of human experience,exploring themes of vulnerability and the body’s central role in shaping perception.
Recent past winners of the Booker Prize include paul Lynch’s Prophet Song, Shehan Karunatilaka’s The Seven Moons of Maal Almeida, and Damon Galgut’s The Promise.
Flesh by David Szalay is published by Vintage Publishing (£18.99) and is available for purchase at guardianbookshop.com for £16.14 (delivery charges may apply).
