The air in London’s Old Billingsgate was thick with anticipation, but for David Szalay, the night held a particular, personal tension. His novel, Flesh, felt “quite a risky novel,” he would later confess, a feeling that permeated everything from its stark prose to its blunt, bodily title. So when 1993 winner Roddy Doyle took the stage to announce the winner of the 2025 Booker Prize, Szalay was simply another author in the crowd, hoping his gamble had paid off.The announcement crowned Szalay, the Hungarian-British author, as the laureate for his sixth work of fiction, making him the first writer of his heritage to win the prestigious award. The win marks a triumphant return to the Booker shortlist for Szalay, who was previously nominated in 2016, and validates a novel born from creative uncertainty.Express Review | David Szalay’s Flesh asks what it really means to be a man‘Could a novel called Flesh win the Booker?’In his acceptance speech, a visibly moved Szalay immediately highlighted the sense of risk that had defined the book’s journey. He recalled a conversation with his editor, Hannah Weston at Jonathan Cape, “wondering aloud whether she could imagine a novel called Flesh winning the Booker Prize.”“It felt risky to me writing it,” he told the assembled audience, his trophy held tightly. “I think it’s very important that the publisher, the novel-making community… embraces that sense of risk rather than shuns it.”This theme of perseverance was echoed by the judging panel throughout the evening. Chair Roddy Doyle, in his characteristically wry speech, noted that the panel had read the six shortlisted books three times. “I’ve read my own books once,” he quipped, drawing laughter. But he turned serious to describe the moment the panel found its winner: “There was one book that we kept coming back to, one book in particular that made us all… sit up and smile.”The predecessor that consumed years of his lifeThe path to Flesh was not straightforward. In a revealing moment after the ceremony, Szalay shared with host Samira Ahmed that he began the novel just after abandoning another—a full-length work of 80,000 to 100,000 words that had consumed years of his life.Story continues below this ad“This wasn’t necessarily a very easy book to write,” he admitted from the podium, dedicating his win to his wife, Oshoya, the “only real witness” to his struggles. “I’m sure she is as bewildered as I am by the fact that those rather bleak times and this glittering evening are somehow part of the same process.” The 2025 Booker winning novel, Flesh, is a propulsive and penetrating work that spans decades and geographies.Making the books fightThe judging process itself was a marathon of reading and reflection. Earlier in the evening, judges Sarah Jessica Parker and Kiley Reid offered glimpses into their rigorous deliberations. Parker, who served as a judge, described hiding chapters of books in her costume during film shoots, pulling them out “every time they say cut.” Reid, a former Booker-longlisted author herself, revealed her unique method of making books “fight a little bit” by reading two competing titles in one-hour increments.Plans for the prize money?For Szalay, the win is both a professional landmark and a practical relief. In his first post-win interview, when asked about the £50,000 prize money, he said with a laugh that it would “keep the wolf a bit further from the door,” though he allowed for the possibility of “a nice little holiday.”As the ceremony wound down, Doyle offered the new laureate some sage advice from one winner to another: “Say no to everything. Get home as quickly as you can, lock the door.”Story continues below this adFor David Szalay, however, the door has just been blown wide open. His novel—a risky, profound exploration of a Hungarian man adrift in London—has been affirmed not just as a work of art, but as the definitive book of the year, proving that in literature, as in life, the greatest rewards often lie on the other side of risk.