What drives a life, what gives it value and what breaks it? István, fifteen, lives with his mother in a prefabricated housing estate on the outskirts of a Hungarian city. He is shy and finds it difficult to see through the social codes of his peers. When the reluctant acquaintance with a neighbor of his mother's age develops into a sexual relationship that István himself hardly understands, his life gets out of control. An accident occurs, a man dies. The years that follow lead István from Hungary to London, where he moves from job to job and where every turn he takes is determined by the good or selfish intentions of strangers. While he rises and finally falls in an unexpected way, István himself remains almost uninvolved in the events, speechless - a silent observer of his own turbulent life. Hypnotic, with harrowing emphasis and great sensitivity, David Szalay tells of a life in his intimate moments - a life that is barely perceptibly shaped by the shocks of the present, the precariousness of human existence in a cold Europe. From the jury's statement for the Booker Prize 2025: 'In many respects, István stands for the stereotype of the masculine - physical, impulsive, alienated from one's own feelings (and speechless in large parts of the novel: he is probably one of the most taciturn characters in literature). Nevertheless, this hypnotic, captivating book with its deliberately reduced prose paints an extremely moving portrait of a person's life.'