István isn't one of the most talkative characters in literary fiction. He says "yeah" and "okay" a lot, and is mostly reactive to the world around him. But that quietness covers up a tumultuous life — from Hungary to England, from poverty to being in close contact with the super-rich.
He's the center of David Szalay's latest novel, Flesh, which just won this year's Booker Prize. "We had never read anything quite like it," said Roddy Doyle, chair of this year's prize, in a statement announcing the win. "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 Booker Prize is one of the most prestigious awards in literature. It honors the best English-language novels published in the U.K. Winners of the awards receive £50,000, and usually a decent bump in sales.
Szalay is a Hungarian-British author. Flesh is his sixth novel. In 2016, he was shortlisted for the Booker prize for his book All That Man Is. He told the Booker Prize that he was inspired to write Flesh after his own time living between Hungary and England, and noticing the cultural and economic divides that exist within contemporary Europe. "I also wanted to write about life as a physical experience, about what it's like to be a living body in the world."
Flesh beat out five other books for the win — including Susan Choi's Flashlight, Kiran Desai's The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, Katie Kitamura's Audition, Ben Markovits' The Rest of Our Lives and The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller.
The other judges for this year were novelist Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀, critic Chris Power, author Kiley Reid and actor and producer Sarah Jessica Parker.
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