Writer David Szalay deliberately dared his readers to face up to the "ickiness" of an affair between a 15-year-old boy and his much older married neighbour in the first chapter of his new book, "Flesh".

And it worked, winning him Britain's top literary award the Booker Prize this week with his "extraordinary" story of a Hungarian immigrant who worked -- and slept -- his way up the greasy pole in London after starting out as a bouncer.

The 51-year-old British Hungarian author -- who narrowly lost out on the £50,000 ($65,500) prize in 2016 -- has been quietly building a reputation for his stripped back, realist fiction which often explores themes of masculinity and migration.

Szalay laughed when told that a reader said online that they were grossed out by his protagonist Istvan losing his

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