Canadian-Hungarian-British writer David Szalay wins Booker Prize for fiction for ‘Flesh’
London: Canadian-Hungarian-British writer David Szalay won the Booker Prize in the fiction category on Monday for his work ‘Flesh’, beating five other finalists, including favourites Andrew Miller and Kiran Desai.
Szalay, aged 51 years, who was chosen by a panel of judges that included Irish writer Roddy Doyle as well as ‘Sex and the City’ star Sarah Jessica Parker, will be honoured with a £50,000 ($66,000) payday, while the award is considered a major boost to a writer’s sales and profile too.
Szalay’s book narrates the life of a taciturn István, from a teenage relationship with an older woman over a period of time as a struggling immigrant in Britain to a denizen of London high society. The author has said he wanted to write about a Hungarian immigrant, and “about life as a physical experience, about what it’s like to be a living body in the world.”
Speaking about ‘Flesh’, Doyle has said that István belonged to the working class, which is overlooked in fiction. After reading the novel, he has begun looking more closely when he walks past bouncers standing in the doorways of Dublin pubs, Doyle added.
Many critics also praised the book, but is known to have frustrated others as it refused to fill in the gaps in the protagonist’s story, which includes incarceration and wartime service in Iraq occur off the page. The protagonist István is also adamantly unexpressive and his most common remark is merely ‘Okay’, the critics have said.
Szalay, who was born in Canada, raised in the U.K. and lives in Vienna, was previously a Booker finalist in 2016 for “All That Man Is,” a series of stories about nine wildly different men.
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Two arrested in K'taka for assaulting minors, uploading CSAM content
Bengaluru (PTI): Two men were arrested for allegedly sexually assaulting two minor girls, recording the acts on mobile phones and uploading the videos online as child sexual abuse material, police said on Thursday.
The accused have been identified as Kiran Kumar (29), hailing from Chitradurga district, and Aditya M K (20), hailing from Shivamogga district, they said.
A probe was initiated after information was received from the NCRP portal regarding a suspected instance of creation of Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) for online dissemination, police said.
Accordingly, a case was registered at Kaggalipura Police Station under relevant sections of the IT Act on May 10, they added.
Investigation revealed that two minor girl victims were exploited and videos were created and uploaded to the internet. The child victims have subsequently recorded their statements as per procedure and further necessary legal steps have been taken, Pronab Mohanty Director General of Police, Cyber Command, said in a statement.
Based on the statements of the victims, the accused persons, who allegedly assaulted the minors, recorded the acts on mobile phones and uploaded the videos online, were arrested, he said.
Following the probe, sections 65(2) (rape) and 70 (gangrape) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, along with relevant sections of the POCSO Act, have been added to the FIR, police said.
Officials collected relevant information and on May 12, arrested the accused persons and seized three mobile phones belonging to them, in which the videos had allegedly been recorded, he said.
The accused were later produced before the court and taken into police custody for further investigation, he added.
According to him, in CSAM cases, police usually apprehend offenders who have downloaded such content or have kept them in their possession after obtaining them from elsewhere, usually the internet.
"The present case is one of the very few instances where content creators and uploaders have been apprehended," Mohanty added.
