Podcast Summary: "All Of It" – ‘Flesh’ Wins the Booker Prize

Host: Alison Stewart (WNYC)
Guest: David Szalay, author of Flesh (2025 Booker Prize Winner)
Episode Date: November 21, 2025

Episode Overview

This episode centers on David Szalay's novel Flesh, which recently secured the 2025 Booker Prize. Alison Stewart interviews Szalay, delving into the novel's creation, themes, character development, and Szalay’s reactions to winning this prestigious literary award. The conversation also explores issues such as identity, physicality, cultural transition, male loneliness, and wealth, as experienced through the book's protagonist, Istvan.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Background: The Origins of Flesh

• Abandonment of Previous Project

  • Szalay reveals he began Flesh after abandoning another novel that wasn't working out on a fundamental level.
  • "It took me quite a while to realize that... the only thing to do really, was to abandon it. So I did. There was maybe 80,000 words of it." (02:46, David)
  • Initial relief turned quickly to the challenge of beginning a new project.

• Starting with Setting, Not Character

  • Szalay was living in Hungary after growing up and spending most of his adult life in England.
  • Felt "neither fully at home in Hungary nor in England" and wanted to use that sense of outsider identity.
  • "I wanted to write a book that was partly set in Hungary and partly in England... about life as a physical experience, first and foremost." (03:42, David)

Development of Istvan

• Character Emergence

  • Istvan did not "show up" as a voice in Szalay’s mind but emerged from themes and settings he wanted to explore.

• Writing Style and Emotional Impact

  • The first chapter, involving Istvan and a neighbor, was written in a "detached, pared down" style to emphasize the protagonist’s numbness and teenage confusion.
  • Szalay sought to produce emotional impact through simplicity.
    • "I wanted to write that in this very detached sort of style... because it seemed to capture the numbness and confusion." (05:25, David)

Characterization & Dialogue

• Istvan’s Inarticulacy

  • Intentional choice to center a novel around a protagonist who "doesn’t explain himself" to the reader.
    • "I wanted specifically to write a novel... about a character who didn't really explain himself, a protagonist who didn't explain himself to the reader." (08:12, David)
  • Dialogue often consists of brief responses: “okay” and “yeah.”
  • Focuses on physical experience over interior monologue.

• Second Language Element

  • Much of the novel is set in England, with Istvan using English as a second language, affecting his speech patterns.
  • The limited dialogue also underscores his outsider status and understated complexity.

Structure and Time Jumps

• Non-Linear Storytelling
  • The novel features significant time jumps, moving through decades of Istvan’s life.
  • Szalay describes this structure as instinctive, mapping out the arc early and filling in obliquely:
    • "The whole book works through quite an oblique way of telling the story often." (11:27, David)
  • Experiences (e.g., Iraq war service) are revealed gradually, often indirectly, through aftermath and therapy sessions.

Themes: Wealth, Power, and Cultural Transition

• Economic Ascent and Views on Wealth
  • Istvan starts in a modest background, becomes a personal driver for the ultra-wealthy in England, and later attains wealth himself.
  • Istvan is non-judgmental about wealth, serving almost as a blank canvas for the reader.
    • "He neither is someone who is judgmental about wealth, nor is he someone who, with great energy... seeks wealth, really." (13:47, David)
  • Book explores economic migration and East-to-West European dynamics.

Appearance, Attraction, and Description

• Physical Description
  • Istvan’s physical appearance is left intentionally vague.
  • His attractiveness is inferred by the interest of women, but Szalay wanted the reader’s sense of him to be "who he is as a person," not his specific looks:
    • "I have an incredibly strong sense of who he is as a person, but I don't have a very precise sense of what he looks at." (15:29, David)

Loneliness and Identity

• Istvan as Loner, Not Lonely
  • Host brings up recent discussion of a “male loneliness epidemic.”
  • Szalay differentiates Istvan as "a loner, for sure... but not someone afflicted by acute loneliness":
    • "He's someone who's quite comfortable being alone... loneliness as such isn't really in the foreground." (17:21, David)
  • Szalay relates his own loner tendencies, but emphasizes searching for "bedrock, common humanity" between himself and the character:
    • "One of the main things that I was really trying to do with this book was to try and find some sense of bedrock, common humanity... between this character and anybody." (18:13, David)

Booker Prize Experience

• Reaction to Winning

  • Szalay describes winning as an "extraordinary, dreamlike moment," having convinced himself he wouldn’t win to enjoy the evening.
    • "It was just an extraordinary dreamlike moment..." (19:20, David)
  • He expects the prize will enhance the book’s sales and his literary profile, calling it both validating and prestigiously significant:
    • "The recognition of it, the sort of validation... is something which I think most people on some level would... crave. And I'm certainly no exception to that." (20:14, David)

• Current and Future Work

  • He confirms he is already at work on a new novel, which was paused due to the attention around Flesh:
    • "I am, I am... I'm kind of well into another book actually, but that's had to be somewhat paused..." (21:18, David)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On abandoning projects:

  • “There was maybe 80,000 words of it, so it was quite a big thing to junk... it was initially a relief to do that, but then, of course, I had to start work on something else, and, and that was a bit tough.” (02:46, David)

• On building character through context:

  • “I wanted to write a book that was about life as a physical experience, first and foremost.” (03:42, David)

• On writing a non-explanatory protagonist:

  • “It wasn't really going to be about Istvan's sort of mental states in a way... but it approaches them from the point of view of physical experience...” (08:12, David)

• On describing characters:

  • “I have an extremely strong sense of characters in terms of who they are without having a very precise sense of what they look like. And I just thought that was so interesting that I almost deliberately pushed that dynamic.” (15:29, David)

• On winning the Booker:

  • “It was just an extraordinary, dreamlike moment which sort of lasted for hours or perhaps even days after that... and you know, I'm still only just starting to get my head around it.” (19:20, David)

Timestamps for Important Segments

• [02:46] – Abandoning prior novel and genesis of Flesh
• [03:42] – Istvan’s emergence and starting with setting
• [05:25] – Writing the first chapter, stylistic choices
• [08:12] – Challenges and intentionality behind an inarticulate protagonist
• [11:27] – Time jumps and narrative structure
• [13:47] – Money, wealth, and Eastern/Western Europe divide
• [15:29] – Character appearance and intentional vagueness
• [17:21] – Loneliness vs. being a loner
• [19:20] – Reaction to winning the Booker Prize
• [21:18] – On new projects and moving forward

Episode Summary

In this engaging and insightful conversation, Alison Stewart guides Booker Prize winner David Szalay through the inspiration, structure, and emotional underpinnings of his acclaimed novel, Flesh. Szalay’s thoughtful reflections provide listeners with a vivid sense of how literary fiction can foreground physical experience, embrace ambiguity, and challenge conventional character portrayal. The interview not only illuminates the process behind one of the year’s most celebrated novels but also offers universal insights into displacement, ambition, and the search for common humanity.