“Writing about sex is difficult”
Published 2026-06-05 07.00
His debated book “Meat” ignited a debate about masculinity in literature.
David Szalay himself above all wanted to write about how chance affects our lives.
– I don’t want it to be considered a book only for men.
Some critics have read “Meat” as a way of understanding silent men – the main character’s dialogue consists for the most part of the words “okay” and “sure”. But for David Szalay began writing in thoughts about being a body in the world. He did not want, as many writers do, to focus on thoughts and feelings.
– I see the fact that we are living bodies as the basis of our existence. Everything else radiates from it. It is also something that is often overlooked in literary depictions of our lives, he says.
Different opinions
At the center of the book is István, a Hungarian man who is abused as a teenager and eventually migrates to London where he ends up in the world of the super rich. It is up to the reader to interpret how István experiences the upheaval events.
– So it is perhaps not surprising that people have such different opinions about the book, states David Szalay, who is happy about the debate.
With the paucity of words, he also wanted to express that language has its limitations – which characterizes the somewhat chilly depictions of sex.
– Writing about sex is difficult, it can easily become absurd, sentimental or just weird. I decided to write matter-of-factly, without strange metaphors, he says, hoping that the reader will imagine István’s feelings for himself.
Coincidence most important
Szalay believes that a factual book about one man’s experiences stands out in an industry where novel writing has largely become a female affair. But masculinity was not something he wanted to explore.
– For me, chance is more important. This is how I see the world, it starts with where and when we are born and who our parents are. Our lives are shaped in that moment and it is not something we can control.
The book begins when the Iron Curtain falls and Europe must unite. Instead, the gaps between East and West grow, and István experiences both enormous social differences and suffers prejudice against him as a migrant.
Szalay questions how much agency we have, can our free will really affect our lives? Even as an 11-year-old, he was fascinated by how George Orwell in “Animal Farm” depicts how fate befalls people, whether they deserve it or not.
– In the book there is a moment when István saves a person from dying, it is morally admirable, but it is not something he is rewarded for. The book shows that there is no connection between moral actions and success.
David Szalay
Born: 1974 in Canada, to a Canadian mother and Hungarian father. He grew up in the UK and has lived over ten years in Hungary.
Lives: Vienna
Family: Married and three children.
Current: With the novel “Meat”.
Background: Has written six novels and been awarded several prizes, including The Gordon Burn prize for the novel “All that man is”, which was also nominated for the Booker Prize in 2018. In 2025, he was awarded the Booker Prize for the novel “Meat”.
Favorite author: “I struggle with that question, I don’t know, I appreciate Houellebecq, Alan Hollinghurst, Virginia Woolf, to name a few”.
Are you writing something: “In a sense. I have something half-finished that I’m not working on right now, I’m looking forward to starting writing on it again.”
David Szalay on:
…prejudice against migrants from the East:
“It’s subtle. István doesn’t face a wall of hostility but there are those who gently mock his accent. And that mockery is a sign of larger prejudices, about who he is and the place he comes from. Migrants from Eastern Europe are received in a rather nuanced way. But there is a condescending side, that he is not taken seriously.”
… how he started writing:
“As a child I liked reading and started writing as a reaction to it. I was ten years old, reading was like a game that you wanted to play from the other side, it was a naive and unconscious attempt to recreate what you enjoy as a reader. It didn’t have to mean or express anything, it was just the enjoyment of that game”.
