The judges spent more than five hours discussing the six shortlisted novels before settling on the winner. Doyle said it became “very clear that this was the book that all five of us liked most”.
“They found it spare, disciplined, urgent, honest and heartbreaking,” said Gaby Wood, chief executive of the Booker Prize Foundation.
“With Flesh, they all agreed, David Szalay breaks new ground. I share the judges’ excitement over the work of an author who has been writing with ferocious and stark commitment for many years.”
Flesh is Szalay’s sixth novel, and he was previously nominated for the Booker for All That Man Is, another exploration of modern masculinity, in 2016.
He collected £50,000 as this year’s winner.
The other shortlisted novels were:
