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David Szalay

Biography

David Szalay

David Szalay is the author of TURBULENCE, SPRING, THE INNOCENT, LONDON AND THE SOUTH-EAST and ALL THAT MAN IS. He’s been awarded the Gordon Burn Prize and The Paris Review Plimpton Prize for Fiction, and has been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. Born in Canada, he grew up in London and now lives in Budapest.

David Szalay

Books by David Szalay

by David Szalay - Family Life, Fiction, Friendship, Literary Fiction

Teenaged István lives with his mother in a quiet apartment complex in Hungary. Shy and new in town, he is a stranger to the social rituals practiced by his classmates and soon becomes isolated, with his neighbor --- a married woman close to his mother’s age, whom he begrudgingly helps with errands --- as his only companion. But as these periodical encounters shift into a clandestine relationship that István himself can barely understand, his life soon spirals out of control, ending in a violent accident that leaves a man dead. What follows is a rocky trajectory that sees István emigrate from Hungary to London, where he moves from job to job before finding steady work as a driver for London’s billionaire class. Through it all, István is a calm, detached observer of his own life and through his eyes we experience a tragic twist on an immigrant “success story.” 

by David Szalay - Fiction

A woman strikes up a conversation with the man sitting next to her on a plane after some turbulence. He returns home to tragic news that also has impacted another stranger, a shaken pilot on his way to another continent who seeks comfort from a journalist he meets that night. Her life shifts subtly as well, before she heads to the airport on an assignment that will shift more lives in turn. In TURBULENCE, David Szalay’s diverse protagonists circumnavigate the planet in 12 flights en route to see lovers or estranged siblings, aging parents, baby grandchildren or nobody at all. Along the way, they change each other in one brief, electrifying interaction after the next.