An unprecedented scent of Central Europe on the Booker Prize, a sort of Nobel Prize for literature in the English language: a recognition that confirms the increasingly multi-ethnic and multicultural turn in recent years. The surprise winner was in fact David Szalay, a writer whose roots remain firmly linked to Hungary, awarded for «Flesh», his sixth novel, published in Italy by Adelphi (translation by Anna Rusconi) with the title «Nella carne».
Born 51 years ago in Canada to a Hungarian father, who then moved to the United Kingdom, and then returned to his homeland after studying at Oxford University, before moving to Vienna, Szalay is a refined and cosmopolitan intellectual, a British and Hungarian citizen, who writes in English. He was awarded for a work with partially autobiographical echoes which tells the story of a Hungarian emigrant – István, the protagonist with strokes of silence – who accumulates and loses a fortune, moving to London before repatriating. The author explained that he wanted to explore through the novel, which was as “dark” as it was compelling in critics’ reviews, the fault line of the “cultural and economic divisions that cross Europe today”.
A result not foreseen by bookmakers. Szalay wins 50,000 pounds and a crucial contribution to literary fame in front of the vast audience of the so-called Anglosphere. The jury underlined “the singularity” of Szalay’s book in motivating its choice. «What we particularly liked about Flesh is that it is not like any other novel: it is a dark novel, but reading it gave us joy».
Zalay will be in Cosenza as the only stop in the South of his Italian minitour of only 4 dates (the others: Rome, Terni and Castiglion Fiorentino): on December 2nd, at 6pm, at the Casa della Cultura he will talk with Marco Vigevani. The Cosenza event was organized by the Sila Prize Foundation, which continues to bring the most authoritative voices of international literature to Calabria.