The book that opens the ball: 'Flesh', the 2025 Booker Prize winner, kicks off Toronto's Festival of Authors!

The opening needed a book that could carry it — Toronto found one. This Wednesday, October 28, the 47th edition of the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) takes off at Victoria University, and the headline conversation of its opening night carries a title that pops: 'Flesh: David Szalay'. At 7:30 p.m. at the Isabel Bader Theatre, Canada's largest literary festival opens its ball with the most decorated novel of the year.

A Booker Prize winner to open the ball

'Flesh' won the 2025 Booker Prize, the most prestigious award in English-language fiction — and the honours don't stop there: a New York Times and Globe and Mail Best Book of the Year, an Indigo Book of the Year, and a spot on the longlist for the 2026 Andrew Carnegie Medal. The chair of the Booker judges, writer Roddy Doyle, said it plainly: the jury had 'never read anything quite like it' — 'an extraordinary, singular novel'. This is the book, and no other, that Toronto chose to launch its authors' festival.

István, a life swept away

The novel follows István, fifteen, living with his mother in a quiet housing estate in Hungary. A shy, isolated teenager, he sees his life tip over — then get swept away, decade after decade, by sex, violence, chance, money and power, all the way to the world of London's super-rich. At the centre of the story: a man profoundly unable to express his emotional life, and a question that runs through the whole book — what makes a life worth living? A 'spare, hypnotic' novel, in the festival's words, about masculinity, class and desire.

An author born in Canada, in conversation tonight

David Szalay was born in Canada, grew up in London and now lives in Vienna. The author of six works of fiction translated into more than twenty languages, he already knows the spotlight: in 2016, his book All That Man Is was shortlisted for the Booker. Tonight in Toronto, he will discuss 'Flesh' with host Elamin Abdelmahmoud — and a book signing will follow the conversation. The book is published in Canada by Penguin Random House Canada.

And this is only the opening: until Sunday, November 1, TIFA rolls out more than 100 events with Dave Eggers, Marie NDiaye, Ann-Marie MacDonald, Andrew Sean Greer, Patrick deWitt, Vivek Shraya, Canisia Lubrin and Téa Mutonji. The full Toronto season programme — the Royal Fair, the Winter Village, the Cavalcade lights — is in our story 'Toronto turns party mode on', and our Canada discovery notebook now counts sixteen Toronto addresses to plan the outing. Tonight, Toronto opens a book — and what a book. Check ben ça!