Hungarian-British author David Szalay has won the 2025 Booker Prize for his novel Flesh, announced at a ceremony in London on Monday. The £50 000 award was presented by last year’s winner, Samantha Harvey.

Szalay was previously shortlisted for All That Man Is in 2016.

His prize-winning work, Flesh, was selected from 153 eligible novels published in Britain or Ireland between October 2024 and September 2025.

The British Broadcasting Corporation said that: “Flesh tells the story of an alluring, enigmatic and emotionally detached man who is swept through different phases of his life, from a Hungarian housing estate to the world of the ultra-rich in London.”

The judging panel was chaired by 1993 Booker laureate Roddy Doyle and included Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀, Sarah Jessica Parker, Chris Power, and Kiley Reid. Doyle praised Flesh for its: “singularity and spare strength.”

The shortlist featured Flesh alongside The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller, The Rest of Our Lives by Ben Markovits, Audition by Katie Kitamura, The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai, and Flashlight by Susan Choi.

Booker Foundation director Gaby Wood said the judges kept returning to Szalay’s novel and agreed it: “breaks new ground.”