David Szalay
“Nobody captures the super-sadness of modern Europe as well as Szalay”, wrote The Spectator in 2016 about All That Man Is, a collection of nine interconnected stories by the startlingly original writer David Szalay. Born in Montreal in 1974 to a Canadian mother and a Hungarian father, Szalay grew up in Beirut, studied at Oxford University and now lives in Vienna. His 2018 short story collection Turbulence, which follows twelve different passengers on a string of flights around the world, was originally commissioned as a BBC Radio 4 short drama series and was praised for its structurally innovative exploration of the globalization of family and friendship in the 21st century. Szalay’s sixth novel, Flesh, portrays the unconventional rags-to-riches story of István, a pliable, tight-lipped man who seems to process the world better with his body than his mind. When a traumatic teenage experience sends his life spiraling out of control, István, unlike most literary heroes, allows himself to be carried along by the currents of his time, charting a rocky trajectory from juvenile detention and a stint in the Iraq war to a life of luxury that ultimately threatens to undo him. In Flesh, Szalay uses brutally pared-back language to examine modern masculinity, allowing meaning to erupt between the spare, minimalist lines. The book has been enthusiastically received by the critics and has won the 2025 Booker Prize.
