British author David Szalay won the Booker Prize for fiction on Monday for “Flesh,” the story of one man’s life from working-class origins in Hungary to mega-wealth in a Britain where what’s not on the page is as important as what is.
“This hypnotically tense and compelling book, which uses only the tiniest of prose, becomes a wonderfully moving portrait of a man’s life,” the Booker Prize judges said of their winning choice.
Szalay, 51, beat Kiran Desai’s ‘The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny’ to win the coveted literary prize, which carries a £50,000 ($66,000) payout and a major sales and profile boost for the winner.
Desai missed out on becoming only the fifth double winner in the Booker’s 56-year history when he won the coveted literary prize for fiction in 2006 for ‘The Inheritance of Loss’.
Other finalists included Andrew Miller from Britain.
Who is David Szalay?
David Szalay is a Canadian-Hungarian-British writer born in Montreal to a Hungarian father and a Canadian mother. He grew up in Great Britain and now lives in Vienna.
Szalay, the author of six works of fiction, was previously shortlisted for the prestigious literary honor in 2016 for his latest work, All That Man Is.
“All That Man Is” is a series of stories about nine very different men.
