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He knew that those on the long list would find out whether they’d made it to the next round that day, so he asked his publisher to call him either way and went to a forest in Slovenia, where he has a house where he spends much of the summer. 

“I was hiding from the world there while I waited,” he says.

He’d spent the day trying to distract himself from the call, he says. And when it came, he felt relieved.

“There’s a feeling of wanting this book to do at least as well as the last book,” he says, referring to 2016’s shortlisted novel “All That Man Is,” which is told through nine interconnected short stories about men in different stages of life. 

“I think everyone always wants their most recent book not to feel like a step back on their earlier books. So in that sense, having been shortlisted sets a very high bar.”

The writer made the remarks on a video call from Hungary, where he spends about a week each month to be with family. He predominantly lives in Austria. 

Szalay was born in Montreal to a Canadian mother and Hungarian father, and they moved to England less than a year later. Still, he says, Canada is a key part of his identity.

“I had a very fiercely patriotic Canadian grandmother who would impress on us how wonderful it was to be Canadian,” he says. “We absorbed that lesson at an early age. So although I didn’t grow up in Canada ... I have very intense childhood memories, layered childhood memories, of going there.”

“Flesh” follows a socially isolated man from adolescence through to middle age, from the projects of Hungary to the upper echelons of British society. It’s an unconventional rags-to-riches story, but what really sets it apart is the writing, says Booker judge Kiley Reid.

“There’s years and gaps in (the protagonist’s) life, and we do not see him, but we don’t miss a beat. We don’t miss it. We understand completely where we pick up. Not just chronologically, but in terms of what’s important to the story,” she said on stage Tuesday.

This year’s short list also includes “The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny” by Kiran Desai. It’s the Indian author’s first book in nearly two decades. Her last one, “The Inheritance of Loss,” won the Booker in 2006. 

Rounding out the short list are U.K. writer Andrew Miller for “The Land in Winter,” as well as three books by American authors: “Flashlight” by Susan Choi; “Audition” by Katie Kitamura; and “The Rest of Our Lives” by Ben Markovits.

Though Szalay knew he had made the list, he says he found out who the other finalists were with the rest of the world.

“It was extremely interesting to see which other books were on the short list because that, of course, I didn’t know,” he says.

The award, which is worth roughly $93,000, is due to be handed out at a ceremony in London on Nov. 10.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 24, 2025.