David Szalay wins Booker Prize for fiction with his earthy novel 'Flesh'

Canadian-Hungarian-British writer David Szalay won the Booker Prize for fiction on Monday for "Flesh," the story of one man's life from working-class origins in Hungary to mega-wealth in Britain, in which what isn't on the page is just as important as what is. Szalay, 51, beat five other finalists, including favorites Andrew Miller of Britain and Indian author Kiran Desai, to take the coveted literary award, which brings a 50,000-pound ($66,000) payday and a big boost to the winner's sales and profile. He was chosen from 153 submitted novels by a judging panel that included Irish writer Roddy Doyle and "Sex and the City" star Sarah Jessica Parker.

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Doyle said “Flesh” — a book “about living, and the strangeness of living” — emerged as the judges’ unanimous choice after a five-hour meeting. Szalay’s book recounts in spare, unadorned style the life of taciturn István, from a teenage relationship with an older woman through time as a struggling immigrant in Britain to unlikely denizen of London high society.