I love books.
Something is fascinating about opening a book and discovering that, beneath the pages, there is a story about life itself. Sometimes a book entertains us. Sometimes it teaches us. And sometimes, unexpectedly, it makes us look at our own lives differently.
That was how I felt after reading Flesh by David Szalay. The novel itself is not the subject of this article. What captured my attention was the man behind the book.
Szalay’s journey reminded me that sometimes the road to greatness does not look anything like greatness when we are walking through it.
Today, David Szalay is known as the author of Flesh, the 2025 Booker Prize-winning novel. But his journey to that stage was anything but straightforward. He experienced displacement, uncertainty, unconventional employment and creative disappointment before arriving at literary success.
And that is where his story becomes particularly inspiring.
A Childhood Marked by Movement
David Szalay was born in Canada in 1974 to a Canadian mother and Hungarian father. His childhood was not rooted in one place for very long. His family lived in Lebanon before eventually settling in Britain, and Szalay grew up in London. The experience of living between countries would later become an important part of his identity as a writer.
Imagine growing up without the kind of settled environment many people take for granted. One place becomes home, and then another place becomes home.
One culture surrounds you, and then another culture begins to shape you. You learn, sometimes painfully, that life can move you before you are ready to move.
Yet displacement did not destroy Szalay’s imagination. It became part of it.
Years later, he would write Flesh, a novel stretching between Hungary and England and exploring migration, class, masculinity, power and identity. Szalay himself has spoken about wanting the book to have both a Hungarian and an English end, reflecting his own experience of living between places.
What looked like instability in one season of his life eventually became material for his creativity. That is an important lesson.
Sometimes the experiences we wish we could erase become the very experiences that give our lives depth.
Greatness Did Not Begin With a Bestseller
After studying at Oxford, Szalay did not immediately become the celebrated novelist we know today.
He worked as a financial advertising sales executive in London. This is worth thinking about.
Many people have an idea of success that says, “If I am destined for something great, everything should begin falling into place immediately.”
But life rarely works that way. Sometimes the person who dreams of becoming a writer has to take a job that has nothing to do with writing.
Sometimes the person who wants to build a business has to work for somebody else. Szalay did not allow an ordinary job to convince him that he had an ordinary destiny.
His experience in the corporate world eventually became useful to his writing. His debut novel, London and the South-East, drew from the world he had observed around him and went on to win the Betty Trask Prize and the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize.
The job he might have considered a detour became part of his education. This is something many of us need to remember.
Not every season is the destination. Some seasons are preparation.
Sometimes You Have to Walk Away
Perhaps one of the most powerful parts of Szalay’s journey is what happened when a novel he had been working on refused to become the book he wanted it to be.
After investing years in the project, he eventually abandoned it. Think about that.
Years. Imagine spending years building something, investing your imagination, energy and time into it, only to reach the painful conclusion that it is not working.
For many people, the natural reaction would be to continue simply because they had already invested so much.
“I have already spent too much time on this.”
But there are moments in life when persistence is not about continuing in the same direction. Sometimes persistence means having the courage to change direction.
Szalay’s willingness to let go created room for something else. That something else became Flesh.
He has explained that the novel evolved into existence and that he wanted to explore what it means to be a living body in the world.
What looked like failure became the soil from which a new idea grew. This is one of the greatest lessons from his story: Abandoning what is not working is not always quitting. Sometimes it is making room for what can work.
The Ashes Can Become Soil
We often use the word “failure” as though it is the opposite of success. But perhaps failure is sometimes part of the process by which success is produced.
A farmer does not look at soil and see a finished harvest. He sees potential. The seed disappears into the ground before the plant appears above it.
There is a season when nothing seems to be happening. Then something begins to grow.
Our lives can be like that.
The rejected manuscript may be soil. The failed business, lost opportunities also. David Szalay’s journey reminds us to be careful about judging our lives too early.
A chapter is not the whole book.
Flesh and the Unexpected Triumph
When Flesh emerged, Szalay was no longer simply the man who had once worked in financial advertising or the writer who had abandoned a difficult project.
He had produced something extraordinary.
The novel follows István from adolescence into adulthood and old age, tracing his movement through different worlds of power, wealth, masculinity and displacement. The Booker Prize judges described it as a singular work that uses remarkably spare prose to create a powerful portrait of a man’s life.
Then came the moment that transformed the story. On 10 November 2025, Flesh won the Booker Prize.
Szalay became the first Hungarian-British writer to win the prize, receiving £50,000 and the prestigious Booker trophy.
David Signing a book
Think about the distance between the telephone sales job and the Booker Prize stage. Think about the abandoned manuscript.
Then look at the trophy. Not because every failure was secretly a success, but because he kept moving.
From Failure to Triumph
There is something deeply beautiful about stories like this because they challenge our definition of success.
Success is not always a straight line, and sometimes, after all those things, it looks like standing on a stage holding one of the world’s most prestigious literary prizes.
Perhaps the experiences you currently consider interruptions are quietly preparing you for something you cannot yet see.
Maybe the thing that feels like ashes today will become the soil from which tomorrow’s greatest achievement grows.
So keep going. Your background is not your boundary, and your present circumstances are not qualified to write the final chapter of your life.
Like David Szalay, you may discover that the road you thought was taking you away from your dream was actually teaching you how to reach it. The story is not over. Keep writing.
