Rachel Flynn
Reporting from Old Billingsgate

Image source, BBC/Rachel Flynn

After all that suspense and excitement, this year's Booker Prize winner has been crowned in a star-studded London event.

David Szalay's rags-to-riches novel, Flesh, came out on top. Chief judge Roddy Doyle called it "a dark book, but a joy to read".

The judges read all six shortlisted novels three times, and if you happen to read them even once, you can listen to all the nominees chatting to BBC Radio 4's Front Row about them here.

Judge and actress Sarah Jessica Parker tells the BBC she counted today that she's read 169 books since 23 December last year. Pretty impressive stuff. Reading is "the place I want to be," she told the awards ceremony.

That's it for tonight's live coverage. We hope you enjoyed it - and got some good book recommendations at the very least.

Image source, BBC/Rachel Flynn

You've been sending in your comments following David Szalay's Booker Prize win:

John Dodds writes on social media: "Turns out the only novel I've read this year just won the Booker prize."

While Marcus Green posts: "Congratulations to David Szalay on winning the Booker Prize. An excellent book on a fine shortlist.”

Finally, S Turner has been in touch with us via email to say a book they enjoyed didn't make the shorlist: "I’ve enjoyed Graham Watson's book about Charlotte Brontë, based on Elizabeth Gaskell’s book. I don’t think it’s given the consideration it deserves.”

Ian Youngs
Culture reporter

The Booker organisers turned extracts from each of the shortlisted books into short films - and Stormzy starred in the clip for Flesh., external

Dua Lipa is also a fan - the singer described it as a "tense and gripping read" when she picked it for her book club last month, external.

She wrote: “This is a book that constantly keeps you guessing. Even down to the dialogue, which is like nothing I’ve ever read before.”

Dua also showed her love for the novel when she interviewed Szalay on stage at the New York Public Library in September.

Ian Youngs
Culture reporter

Image source, PA Media

The judges spent more than five hours discussing the six shortlisted novels, but author Roddy Doyle, who chaired the judging panel, said it was "very clear that this was the book that all five of us liked most".

Explaining their choice of winner, Doyle said: "What we particularly liked about Flesh was its singularity. It's just not like any other book.”

It is “a dark book, but we all found it a joy to read”, he added.

Many people have remarked on the power of David Szalay's pared-down, minimalist dialogue and descriptions.

"We loved the spareness of the writing," Doyle explained. "We loved how so much is revealed without us being overly aware of it being revealed.

"It's just extraordinary how he uses white space. Grief is depicted by a few blank pages."

Referring to the writing style, Doyle added: "I found it riveting, and I thought the dialogue was superb - and the absence of it was superb."

Rachel Flynn
Reporting from Old Billingsgate

Image source, PA Media

There are lots of cheers and hugs on the award show floor as David Szalay's win for his novel Flesh is announced.

Taking to the stage, Szalay first thanks his publisher, and says writing the book "felt risky". Even the title felt too risky, he tells the room.

"There was a sense of risk being taken. And I think it's very important that we did take those risks. Fiction can take risks - aesthetic, formal or even moral risks. It's important the novel community embraces risk," Szalay says.

"This wasn't easy to write. I didn't cope that graciously or wisely to the pressure - the only person witness to that was my wife," he adds, who he then thanks for sharing the experience with him.

Ian Youngs
Culture reporter

Image source, Getty Images

Flesh tells the story of an alluring, enigmatic and emotionally detached man who is swept through different phases of his life.

It’s split into different episodes - from a Hungarian housing estate to the Iraq War to the world of the ultra-rich in London. Much of the action takes place in between these episodes, leaving readers to fill in the gaps.

Booker organisers described it as "a meditation on class, power, intimacy, migration and masculinity", and called it "a compelling portrait of one man, and the formative experiences that can reverberate across a lifetime".

The Guardian described it, external as a "brilliantly spare portrait of a man" and a "thrilling exploration of what it means to be alive", while the Sunday Times praised, external how Szalay uses "just one character, Istvan, to tell these three stages of modern man".

Ian Youngs
Culture reporter

The author was born in Canada to a Canadian mother and Hungarian father. They moved to Beirut, then London, when he was small, and he grew up in the English capital. He moved to Hungary and now lives in Vienna, Austria, with his wife.

He worked as a financial advertising sales executive in the City of London, inspiring his first novel, titled London and the South-East, a satire of the life of an unfulfilled ad salesman. It won the Betty Trask and Geoffrey Faber Memorial prizes.

In 2013, he was named on Granta’s list of the Best of Young British Novelists.

He received his first Booker nomination for All That Man Is, another exploration of modern masculinity, in 2016. It missed out on the Booker Prize but did win the Gordon Burn Prize and Plimpton Prize for Fiction.

Flesh is his sixth novel. He has also written BBC radio dramas and short stories, winning the 2019 Edge Hill Prize for his short story collection Turbulence.

Image source, PA Media

And the winner of the 2025 Booker Prize is...

David Szalay, for his novel Flesh.

We'll bring you his reaction to this next.

Rachel Flynn
Reporting from Old Billingsgate

It's time for the announcement we've all been waiting for.

Announcing the Booker Prize award is head judge and former winner Roddy Doyle.

Remember you can watch the announcement live at the top of this page.

Rachel Flynn
Reporting from Old Billingsgate

The ceremony has begun with an interview with two of the five judges, US novelist Kiley Reid and actress Sarah Jessica Parker.

Parker says she finds the time to read "anytime I hear cut" when working in the television industry. Reading books is "the place I most want to be", she tells the audience at Old Billingsgate.

"It's very scary up here, I just want to say," she jokes.

Reid agrees and says she finds it so nerve-wracking to see what the other judges think when they get together.

Image source, BBC/Rachel Flynn

Image source, PA Media

The chair of the judges this year, Roddy Doyle - who won the Booker Prize in 1993 - has been explaining how the panel had to read books multiple times as they whittled the winner down in four phases.

"We started with 153," Doyle says. "Then had 31, then we had 13, then had six, then the one."

Doyle reflects on an "extraordinary experience" of winning the prize and going to place that he would not ordinarily have gone to.

And his advice for this year's winner ...

"Say no to everything," Doyle jokes.

Rachel Flynn
Reporting from Old Billingsgate

Image source, PA Media

It seems a long time ago that Sarah Jessica Parker's admission of reading two books a day was the topic of my group chat.

She reportedly told this to Page Six at a literary gala back in May and was referring to her preparation for her role in choosing this year's Booker Prize.

She confirmed this tonight on the Booker Prize red carpet, telling the BBC: "As a gracious greedy reader, it's a dream come true."

To many - myself included - she's Sex and the City's star protagonist Carrie Bradshaw. She was also an executive producer on the iconic show that aired from 1998 to 2004.

More than 20 years later Parker launched her own literary imprint - a brand in partnership with independent publisher Zando - SJP Lit.

She also owns her own production company, Pretty Matches Productions, which produced Golden Globe-nominated HBO show Divorce.

Image source, PA Media

The BBC is on the red carpet speaking to the shortlisted authors, who are reflecting on how they came to write their novels.

Susan Choi, whose book Flashlight, which is an intimate portrait of displacement, identity, and the geopolitics of family life, explains: "I wanted it to be about a family and their relationships with each other - their lives are really affected by big things and I think that was kind of one of the things I was trying to balance."

The Land in Winter author Andrew Miller, whose book centres on two young married couples living in the British West Country during the Big Freeze of 1963, says it was "an astonishing time in British history".

Ben Markowits, who was inspired to write about being middle aged in his nominated novel The Rest of Our Lives, says: "One of the things I wanted to write about is stop looking forward to the life changes because so many are not desirable."

Tonight's Booker Prize ceremony begins at 21:30 GMT, and is hosted by the BBC's Samira Ahmed. You can watch the big announcement - and the commentary around it - live at the top of this page.

BBC Radio 4's Front Row is also live from the ceremony, which you can listen to here on BBC sounds.

Ian Youngs
Culture reporter

The Booker Prize is the UK's most prestigious fiction award and has been won by some of the most illustrious names in fiction since it began in 1969.

Past winners include Salman Rushdie, Margaret Atwood, Marlon James, Hilary Mantel, Arundhati Roy and Roddy Doyle. The latter is the chair of this year's judging panel.

Winning can catapult a book and author into mainstream success - as happened with books like Life of Pi by Yann Martel; Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo; and Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart.

It is open to all novels written in the English language, with US authors having been able to enter after a controversial rule change in 2014.

Image source, EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock

Deciding the winner of the Booker Prize is nearly a year-long process.

Between January and April:

• Publishers submit a quota of books to the Booker Prize. The number they submit depends on how many books that publishing house have had on the Booker Prize longlist in the last five years
• The six judges read and discuss every submitted book

July:

• Submissions are whittled down to a longlist of 12 or 13 books, known as the Booker Dozen
• Judges have to read all of the longlist again and decide on a shortlist of six books

September

• The Booker Prize shortlist of six books is revealed
• After this, judges meet for the last time to discuss and decide on the winner

November:

• The Booker Prize winner is announced

Rachel Flynn
Reporting from the Booker Prize red carpet

Image source, Rachel Flynn/BBC

London's biggest and best-dressed book club is gathering, and in the words of our cameraman when he saw Sarah Jessica Parker in the flesh - "I'm freaking out".

There's lots of excited mutters and smiles as a variety of celebrities are spotted in each corner. What do actress Ruth Jones, comedian Lenny Henry and podcaster Miquita Oliver have in common? The love of escaping into a good book, it seems, and being here to celebrate that tonight.

"It's been a very weird day, because you're just waiting for the evening," shortlisted author Ben Markovits - who wrote The Rest of Our Lives - tells the BBC.

Those nervous nominees will find out the winner towards the end of tonight's ceremony, before 22:00. Stick with us for live coverage before then.

Image source, Rachel Flynn/BBC

Image source, The Booker Prize Foundation

Every year the Booker Prize panel is a new mix of five people linked to the literary world. Their task is no mean feat: reading over 100 books in seven months and whittling it down to six.

This year's panel includes:

Novelist Roddy Doyle (Chair): The Irish novelist won the Booker Prize in 1993.

Actress Sarah Jessica Parker: For many she's Carrie from Sex and the City. After years in theatre and on screen, in 2023 she launched her own literary imprint - SJP Lit.

Novelist Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀: The Nigerian author wrote Stay with Me, which won the Prix Les Afriques and was long listed for the Booker Prize in 2023.

Chris Power: British writer and critic who wrote A Lonely Man, a Washington Post book of the year. He was a presenter for BBC Radio 4’s ‘Open Book’ from 2020 to 2024.

Kiley Reid: The American novelist was longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2020 for her first novel, Such a Fun Age.

Ian Youngs
Culture reporter

Image source, LOU BENOIST/AFP via Getty Images)

Katie Kitamura - Audition

In short: The fifth novel by Kitamura is narrated by an actress who meets a man claiming to be her son, with overlapping narratives that blur the lines of the characters we play and reality.

The judges say: It's "a brilliantly tense, taut novel that sees an actress's life turned inside out and leaves a lot open to interpretation", adding: "What's real? Audition makes existential detectives of us all."

Ben Markovits - The Rest of Our Lives

In short: A middle-aged man leaves his home and marriage and goes on a road trip after dropping off his daughter at university. It's the 12th novel by the UK-based American writer, who was once a professional basketball player in Germany.

The judges say: "A road trip chronicle, a book about sickness, a basketball novel, a family saga, and a story about how we say goodbye, with a ridiculously relatable narrator."

Ian Youngs
Culture reporter

Andrew Miller - The Land in Winter

Miller, from Bristol, was last nominated for Oxygen in 2001, and is shortlisted again for this novel about two couples, with two pregnant women, whose lives unravel during a ferocious winter storm in the West Country in 1962.

The judges say: "A novel about how to live, and about the tensions within marriages, set against the most dramatic winter in living memory. It's a joy to read, a nerve-shredding pleasure."

David Szalay - Flesh

The British-Hungarian writer's sixth novel follows the twists and turns as a shy 15-year-old boy from a Hungarian housing estate becomes a driver and security guard for London's ultra-rich. Szalay was previously nominated for All That Man Is in 2016.

The judges say: "A novel about class ascension and a man who is remarkably detached from his desires, and a disquisition on the art of being alive. It is also an absolute page-turner."

Image source, John Phillips - WPA Pool/Getty Images