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  • Published: 3 March 2026
  • ISBN: 9781529932423
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 368
  • RRP: $24.99

Flesh





LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2025 – Chance. Luck. Choice. The addictive, darkly funny novel of one man’s rise and fall.

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 is unfamiliar with the social rituals at school and soon becomes isolated, with his neighbour – a married woman close to his mother’s age – as his only companion. As these encounters shift into a clandestine relationship, István’s life spirals out of control.

Years later, rising through the ranks from the army to the elite circles of London's super-rich, he navigates the twenty-first century's tides of money and power. Torn between love, intimacy, status, and wealth, his newfound riches threaten to undo him completely.

  • Published: 3 March 2026
  • ISBN: 9781529932423
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 368
  • RRP: $24.99

About the author

David Szalay

David Szalay is the author of four previous works of fiction: Spring, The Innocent, London and the South-East, for which he was awarded the Betty Trask and Geoffrey Faber Memorial prizes, and All That Man Is, for which he was awarded the Gordon Burn prize and Plimpton Prize for Fiction, and shortlisted for the Man Booker prize. Born in Canada, he grew up in London, and now lives in Budapest.

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