Flesh: A Novel

"At fifteen, István lives with his mother in an apartment block in Hungary. Riddled with adolescent uncertainty about his place in the world, he is lured into an unsettling, and ultimately devastating relationship with an older, married woman. As the novel progresses, we follow István’s transformation from boyhood into uneasy manhood in a rapidly globalizing world. We see him conscripted into the army, later serving in Iraq, and eventually making his way to the glittering universe of London’s wealthy elite. Each phase of his life exposes him to new hierarchies and moral ambiguities. Through it all a hunger for connection, for recognition, for something resembling meaning, continues to pulse beneath the surface of István’s life. Flesh explores the ways power, money, and desire intertwine, and how loneliness can endure even amid apparent success. The writing is precise and unsentimental, yet it is brutally affecting and intimate. It can be read as study of class, aspiration, and the quiet compromises that shape people. One of the things that I find remarkable is its subtle exploration of how the marks left by youth can echo through an entire life. It has been a wonderfully immersive experience. I consider myself an avid reader, but I’ve definitely never read 153 books that were published in the same 12-month window. So, in one sense, judging the Booker prize feels like a masterclass in contemporary fiction. It’s impossible to tell for sure how it will impact my own writing. I do feel, however, that I am now even more interested in how fiction can remain relevant over time. I hope what I write from here on reflects that possibility."