London: Canadian-Hungarian-British writer David Szalay won the Booker Prize for fiction on Monday (UK time) for Flesh , the story of an ordinary man’s life over several decades in which what isn’t on the page is just as important as what is.

Szalay, 51, beat five other finalists, including favourites Andrew Miller and Kiran Desai, to take the coveted literary award, which brings a £50,000 ($101,000) payday and a big boost to the winner’s sales and profile.

David Szalay with his Booker Prize-winning novel Flesh at the London event. Credit: AP

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.

Doyle said Flesh — a book “about living, and the strangeness of living” — emerged as the ju

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