**WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE 2025**

‘Brilliant and wise on chance, love, sex, money’ David Nicholls
‘I was tearing through [Flesh], I never once slowed down’ Jennette McCurdy
‘Brilliance on every page’ Samantha Harvey
‘So much searing insight into the way we live now’ Observer

Through chance, luck and choice, one man’s life takes him from a modest apartment in Hungary to the elite society of London – in this captivating new novel about the forces that make and break our lives

Fifteen-year-old István lives with his mother in a quiet apartment complex in Hungary. New to the town and shy, he becomes isolated, with his neighbor – a married woman – as his only companion. When a clandestine relationship begins between them, his life spirals out of control.

As the years pass, István moves from the army to the circles of London’s elite. His competing impulses for love, intimacy, status and wealth win him unimaginable riches, until they threaten to undo him completely.

Product Details

Format: Paperback | 368 pages
Language: English
ISBN: 9781529932423
Publisher: Vintage Publishing
Publication date: 19 Mar 2026
Category: Modern & contemporary fiction
Author: David Szalay