FORGOTTEN HISTORY: David szalay - Caught on Camera

The Guardian view on the 2026 Booker shortlist: what it takes to be a man

Editorial: All the contenders for this year’s prize are a reflection of the crisis in masculinity

The Guardian - UK · Sep 25

Prue Leith, Mary Berry and Celia Imrie confirmed for Cheltenham Literature Fest

In October, The Times and The Sunday Times Cheltenham Literature Festival will host more than 500 events across 10 days.

Evening Standard · Aug 11

All the glaring similarities between Booker winner Flesh and a Stanley Kubrick film

Readers have pointed out the parallels between David Szalay’s award-winning novel and Kubrick’s 1975 film ‘Barry Lyndon’

The Independent UK · Apr 13

The best 2025 titles to buy for book lovers

It’s tricky, buying books as presents, but here are 10 great choices from this year’s crop, with something for almost everyone — from the big beasts of contemporary fiction to engaging biography and compelling history.

Evening Standard · Nov 29, 2025

Men aren’t vanishing from fiction. The truth is more complicated

IN FOCUS: As debates over the ‘disappearing’ young male novelist rumble on, some authors and critics push back against claims that fiction has closed its doors to men. Hannah Ewens learns that the real problem is less about publishing and more about a wider societal issue

The Independent UK · Nov 25, 2025

Not OK? Booker winner Flesh ignites debate about state of masculinity

Toxic male behaviour of David Szalay’s protagonist reflects real-world concerns about a ‘crisis of masculinity’

The Guardian - UK · Nov 17, 2025

The Guardian view on the Booker prize winner: putting masculinity back at the centre of literary fiction

Editorial: David Szalay’s Flesh breaks from a decade of female-centred interiors and reopens a genre many thought closed to men

The Guardian - UK · Nov 14, 2025

Trespassers and troubadours: what to watch and listen to this week

The winner of this year’s Booker prize, Hungarian-British writer David Szalay, has often been accused of overwriting. His earlier short story collections and novels sometimes lost readers in their ornate, over-detailed descriptions. It seems he’s taken that criticism to heart. After abandoning a novel he had been working on for…

The Conversation · Nov 14, 2025

OPINION - David Szalay is a genius and deserves the Booker Prize. But I believe the story has a forgotten source

Why has the author never acknowledged what he has done, asks David Sexton

Evening Standard · Nov 11, 2025

‘It’s notoriously hard to write about sex’: David Szalay on Flesh, his astounding Booker prize-winner

The novel’s protagonist is violent, libidinous and so inarticulate he says ‘OK’ some 500 times. So how did the author turn his story into a tragic masterpiece?

The Guardian - UK · Nov 11, 2025