David Szalay – författare

VINNARE AV BOOKERPRISET 2025

”Ett mästerverk”, The Observer

"Enastående" Zadie Smith

"En storartad roman” Tessa Hadley

István är femton år och flyttar med sin mamma till ett nytt bostadsområde i Ungern. Han känner ingen men en dag inleder grannfrun en relation med honom, vilket får ödesdigra konsekvenser för hans framtida liv. Några år senare lämnar han Ungern för London, där han blir livvakt till de exceptionellt rika, för att sedan själv försöka göra karriär inom samma elit, ständigt beredvillig. Den internationellt hyllade "Kött" är en djuplodande samtidsskildring med drag av klassiskt drama. David Szalay har skrivit en existentiell bildningsroman om en man som drömmer om lycka och rikedom, men som får betala med sitt eget kött.

”…otroligt fängslande. Gripande, sorglig, störande – och renande på det vis som riktigt god konst kan vara.” Jenny Högström, GP

”…enastående roman” – Ingrid Elam, Kulturnyheterna

”Det pratas ofta om att män i allmänhet, och unga män i synnerhet, läser för lite skönlitteratur. Sätt den här boken i händerna på dem så är problemet löst.” Teodor Stig-Matz, ETC

"En roman om det viktigaste i våra liv: arbete, pengar, sex och död" Tommy Sundin, VK.

”Imponerande” Jens Liljestrand, Expressen

” Utgången är väntad. Ändå slår jag igen boken som bedövad, liksom bländad av det outhärdliga ljuset från världens samlade lidande, det som finns där hela tiden och som man bara orkar titta på i några sekunder. Jag förstår inte riktigt hur Szalay gör för att åstadkomma denna lyskraft. Men jag tror att det har att göra med hur han, liksom István, dröjer sig kvar i tystnaden långt efter att den har slutat vara behaglig.” Rebecka Kärde, DN

VINNARE AV BOOKERPRISET 2025

”Ett mästerverk”, The Observer

"Enastående" Zadie Smith

"En storartad roman” Tessa Hadley

István är femton år och flyttar med sin mamma till ett nytt bostadsområde i Ungern. Han känner ingen men en dag inleder grannfrun en relation med honom, vilket får ödesdigra konsekvenser för hans framtida liv. Några år senare lämnar han Ungern för London, där han blir livvakt till de exceptionellt rika, för att sedan själv försöka göra karriär inom samma elit, ständigt beredvillig. Den internationellt hyllade "Kött" är en djuplodande samtidsskildring med drag av klassiskt drama. David Szalay har skrivit en existentiell bildningsroman om en man som drömmer om lycka och rikedom, men som får betala med sitt eget kött.

”…otroligt fängslande. Gripande, sorglig, störande – och renande på det vis som riktigt god konst kan vara.” Jenny Högström, GP

”…enastående roman” – Ingrid Elam, Kulturnyheterna

”Det pratas ofta om att män i allmänhet, och unga män i synnerhet, läser för lite skönlitteratur. Sätt den här boken i händerna på dem så är problemet löst.” Teodor Stig-Matz, ETC

"En roman om det viktigaste i våra liv: arbete, pengar, sex och död" Tommy Sundin, VK.

”Imponerande” Jens Liljestrand, Expressen

” Utgången är väntad. Ändå slår jag igen boken som bedövad, liksom bländad av det outhärdliga ljuset från världens samlade lidande, det som finns där hela tiden och som man bara orkar titta på i några sekunder. Jag förstår inte riktigt hur Szalay gör för att åstadkomma denna lyskraft. Men jag tror att det har att göra med hur han, liksom István, dröjer sig kvar i tystnaden långt efter att den har slutat vara behaglig.” Rebecka Kärde, DN

VINNARE AV BOOKERPRISET 2025

”Ett mästerverk”, The Observer

"Enastående" Zadie Smith

"En storartad roman” Tessa Hadley

István är femton år och flyttar med sin mamma till ett nytt bostadsområde i Ungern. Han känner ingen men en dag inleder grannfrun en relation med honom, vilket får ödesdigra konsekvenser för hans framtida liv. Några år senare lämnar han Ungern för London, där han blir livvakt till de exceptionellt rika, för att sedan själv försöka göra karriär inom samma elit, ständigt beredvillig. Den internationellt hyllade "Kött" är en djuplodande samtidsskildring med drag av klassiskt drama. David Szalay har skrivit en existentiell bildningsroman om en man som drömmer om lycka och rikedom, men som får betala med sitt eget kött.

”…otroligt fängslande. Gripande, sorglig, störande – och renande på det vis som riktigt god konst kan vara.” Jenny Högström, GP

”…enastående roman” – Ingrid Elam, Kulturnyheterna

”Det pratas ofta om att män i allmänhet, och unga män i synnerhet, läser för lite skönlitteratur. Sätt den här boken i händerna på dem så är problemet löst.” Teodor Stig-Matz, ETC

"En roman om det viktigaste i våra liv: arbete, pengar, sex och död" Tommy Sundin, VK.

”Imponerande” Jens Liljestrand, Expressen

” Utgången är väntad. Ändå slår jag igen boken som bedövad, liksom bländad av det outhärdliga ljuset från världens samlade lidande, det som finns där hela tiden och som man bara orkar titta på i några sekunder. Jag förstår inte riktigt hur Szalay gör för att åstadkomma denna lyskraft. Men jag tror att det har att göra med hur han, liksom István, dröjer sig kvar i tystnaden långt efter att den har slutat vara behaglig.” Rebecka Kärde, DN

'Brilliance on every page' Samantha Harvey'A revelatory novel' Sunday Times‘So brilliant and wise on chance, love, sex, money' David Nicholls‘How do I get out of a reading slump? This is the book to do that’ Rhianna Dhillon, BBC Radio 4At first there seems to be no reason to deny the body what it wants, whenever it wants it.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.'So much searing insight into the way we live now' Observer‘Refreshing, illuminating and true’ Financial Times'Compelling and elegant, merciless and poignant' Tessa Hadley‘Utterly engrossing and I read it all in a day’ 5* reader review‘I was hooked and tried to read this book with any spare moment that I had' 5* reader reviewA ‘Best Book of 2025’ in the Guardian, Observer, Financial Times, Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail

Finalist for the 2016 Man Booker Prize Winner of the 2016 Paris Review Plimpton Prize for FictionA magnificent and ambitiously conceived portrait of contemporary life, by a genius of realismAll That Man Is traces the arc of life from the spring of youth to the winter of old age by following nine men who range from the working-class ex-grunt to the pompous college student, the middle-aged loser to the Russian oligarch. Ludicrous and inarticulate, shocking and despicable, vital, pitiable, and hilarious, these men paint a picture of modern manhood. David Szalay is a master of a new kind of realism that vibrates with detail, intelligence, relevance, and devastating pathos. In All That Man Is, a Man Booker Prize finalist and the winner of the Gordon Burn Prize and the Plimpton Prize, he brilliantly illuminates the physical and emotional terrain of an increasingly globalized Europe.“Szalay’s prose . . . is frequently brilliant, remarkable for its grace and economy . . . [All That Man Is] has a new urgency now that the post-Cold War dream of a Europe of open borders and broad, shared identity has come under increasing question.” —Garth Greenwell, The New York Times Book Review“Szalay does so much and so well that we come to view his snapshots of lives as brilliant, captivating dramas.” —Star Tribune (Minneapolis)“A 100-megawatt novel: intelligent, intricate, so very well made, the form perfectly fitting the content. When I reached the end, I turned straight back to the start to begin again.” —The Sunday Times (London)

Brought to you by Penguin. **WINNER OF THE EDGE HILL SHORT STORY PRIZE 2019**Discover the brilliant new short story collection from the Man Booker-shortlisted author of All That Man IsTwelve people on the move around planet Earth, twelve individual lives, each in turmoil, and each in some way touching the next.In this nuanced and deeply moving sequence, David Szalay''s diverse protagonists circumnavigate the world in twelve plane journeys, from London to Madrid, from Dakar to Sao Paulo, to Toronto, to Delhi, to Doha, en route to see lovers and parents, children and siblings, or nobody at all.Along the way, Szalay deftly depicts the ripple effect that, knowingly or otherwise, a person''s actions have on those around them, and invites us to consider our own place in the vast and delicately balanced network of human relationships that is the world we live in today.© David Szalay 2018 (P) Penguin Audio 2021

Brought to you by Penguin.A propulsive, hypnotic novel about a man who is unravelled by a series of events beyond his grasp.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. These encounters shift into a clandestine relationship that István himself can barely understand, and his life soon spirals out of control.As the years pass, he is carried gradually upwards on the currents of the twenty-first century’s tides of money and power, moving from the army to the company of London’s super-rich, with his own competing impulses for love, intimacy, status and wealth winning him unimaginable riches, until they threaten to undo him completely.Spare and penetrating, Flesh is the finest novel yet by a master of realism, asking profound questions about what drives a life: what makes it worth living, and what breaks it.Chosen as a ‘Best Book of 2025’ by the Guardian, Observer, Financial Times, Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail''Brilliance on every page'' Samantha Harvey, author of Orbital‘Flesh is a wonderful novel – so brilliant and wise on chance, love, sex, money'' David Nicholls, author of One Day''It’s been a long time since I’ve been swallowed whole by a novel the way I was by this one ... So much searing insight into the way we live now'' Observer''Compelling and elegant, merciless and poignant. David Szalay is an extraordinary writer'' Tessa Hadley© David Szalay 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025

The U.S. debut of leading U.K. author David Szalay, named one of The Daily Telegraph''s twenty best British novelists under fortyJames is a man with a checkered past—sporadic entrepreneur, one-time film producer, almost a dot-com millionaire—now alone in a flat in Bloomsbury, running a shady horse-racing-tips operation. Katherine is a manager at a luxury hotel, a job she''d intended to leave years ago, and is separated from her husband. The novel unfolds in 2006, at the end of the money-for-nothing years, as a chance meeting leads to an awkward tryst and James tries to make sense of a relationship where "no" means "maybe" and a "yes" can never be taken for granted. David Szalay builds a novel of immense resonance as he cycles though perspectives that add layers of depth to the hesitations, missteps, and tensions as James tries to win Katherine. James''s other pursuit is money, and Spring follows his investments and schemes, from a half share in a thoroughbred to a suit-and-tie day job he''s taken to pay the bills. Spring is a sharply tuned novel so nuanced and precise in its psychology that it establishes Szalay as a major talent.

The US debut from the author of Man Booker Prize Finalist All That Man IsJames is a man with a checkered past-sporadic entrepreneur, one-time film producer, almost a dot-com millionaire-now alone in a flat in Bloomsbury, running a shady horse-racing-tips operation. Katherine is a manager at a luxury hotel, a job she'd intended to leave years ago, and is separated from her husband. The novel unfolds in 2006, at the end of the money-for-nothing years, as a chance meeting leads to an awkward tryst and James tries to make sense of a relationship where "no" means "maybe" and a "yes" can never be taken for granted. David Szalay builds a novel of immense resonance as he cycles though perspectives that add layers of depth to the hesitations, missteps, and tensions as James tries to win Katherine. James's other pursuit is money, and Spring follows his investments and schemes, from a half share in a thoroughbred to a suit-and-tie day job he's taken to pay the bills. Spring is a sharply tuned novel so nuanced and precise in its psychology that it establishes Szalay as a major talent.

Never before published in the United States, the debut novel by the wildly talented author of Booker Prize Finalist All That Man Is"That clattering noise you hear is the sound of critics and readers racing to find [David Szalay's] earlier books, an activity worth the effort," wrote Dwight Garner in his New York Times review of Szalay's All That Man Is. And now American readers finally have their chance with his debut novel, London and the South-East.Paul Rainey, the hapless antihero at the center of this "compulsively readable" (Independent on Sunday) story works, miserably, in ad sales. He sells space in magazines that hardly exist, and through a fog of booze and drugs dimly perceives that he is dissatisfied with his life-professionally, sexually, recreationally, the whole nine yards. If only there were something he could do about it-and "something" seems to fall into his lap when a meeting with an old friend and fellow salesman, Eddy Jaw, leads to the offer of a new job. But when that offer turns out to be as misleading as Paul's own sales patter, his life is transformed in ways very much more peculiar than he ever thought possible.London and the South-East, which won the Betty Trask Prize and the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, is both a gloriously told shaggy-dog story about the compromising inanities of office life and consumer culture, and the perfect introduction to one of the best writers at work today.