The China Mail - How embracing 'ickiness' helped writer Szalay win Booker Prize

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 virginity to an older woman at the start of the book.

"I think the first chapter -- even though it's quite shocking and graphic and sort of icky to some people -- will draw you into the book," he told AFP.

"There was a feeling that I was taking a bit of a risk with the book and the publishers also, I think, felt that," Szalay said.

"Flesh" follows the rise and fall of Istvan, a laconic Eastern European immigrant everyman who leaves his poor housing estate in Hungary to make his fortune in London, rising to become a rich socialite, his life shaped by events seemingly beyond his control.

"The central character is quite opaque in many ways, he doesn't really explain himself to the reader. So I wasn't quite sure how they were going to respond to him until the book was actually published," Szalay said.

Even its title, "Flesh", "made people slightly uneasy", he admitted, with its "almost vulgar feeling".

The German publishers went with "What Cannot Be Said", Szalay said. It is "a very different approach but, but... it speaks to another aspect of the book which is very real."

- Story would 'never happen post-Brexit' -

Like Istvan, Szalay uses words sparingly, and he also wanted him to be someone like him, who was "stretched" between Hungary and Britain.

Born in Canada to a Hungarian father, Szalay grew up in Britain before moving to Hungary. He now lives in neighbouring Austria with his family.

"I'll never really feel entirely at home in Hungary," Szalay said, adding that he had also "lost touch" with London after moving away.

"So I wanted to write a book that had an English aspect and a Hungarian aspect and a character who wasn't quite at home in either place."

The narrative unfolds around the time that Hungary joined the European Union in the early 2000s, opening the door for people like Istvan to migrate west in search of a better life.

However, the adventures and misadventures of a working-class Hungarian would have been very different in a post-Brexit world, Szalay said.

"The story in Britain wouldn't happen post-Brexit," the author said.

It would probably "take place in Germany" now, he laughed.

Szalay was shortlisted for the Booker in 2016 for "All That Man Is", which traces the often lonely internal lives of nine different men.

With "Flesh", he once again explores male alienation in a novel punctuated by uneasy, revealing silences that critics have praised for attempting to reach the "edge of language".

"While the book is undeniably about masculinity in some way, I wouldn't want that to be the dominant focus," insisted Szalay, who has said he removed explicit references to masculinity to open the book up to interpretation.

Instead, he wanted to craft a work that was both "immediately contemporary" but that had elements of Greek tragedy.

Szalay, who is already working on something new, said being pipped for the Booker by the American Paul Beatty prepared him to deal with winning this time.

"In retrospect, that was probably a blessing," he said.

P.Ho--ThChM