**WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE 2025**
Brilliant and wise on chance, love, sex, money David Nicholls
Anyone can pick up Flesh and appreciate it 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 Istv n lives with his mother in a quiet apartment complex in Hungary. New to the town and shy, he becomes isolated, with his neighbour a married woman as his only companion. When a clandestine relationship begins between them, his life spirals out of control.
As the years pass, Istv n 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.
An astonishingly moving portrait of a man s life Booker Prize Judges, 2025
A revelatory novel Sunday Times
Pure brilliance from the first to the (devastating) last sentence India Knight
Refreshing, illuminating and true Financial Times
One of the most astonishing books I ve ever read Dua Lipa
Hugely entertaining, gripping like a thriller The Times
Visceral and compelling Gary Stevenson
Exciting, propulsive, emotional Sarah Jessica Parker
*A BOOK OF THE YEAR for the Guardian, Observer, Financial Times, Sunday Times, Independent, GQ and Daily Telegraph*
