There is no more effective way to define István, the protagonist of the novel Carn (Amsterdam / Feltrinelli) by David Szalay (Montreal, 1974), than to say that he is a man of few words. And, against all odds, this laconic and silent man seduced the jury of the Booker Prize, one of the most prestigious literary awards in the world, a year ago with a story of desire, deep-seated trauma, power, and violence. Carn, which has just arrived in bookstores translated by Esther Roig, speaks about how circumstances transform people and portrays a fragile masculinity that protects itself behind a shell of coldness and distance. This is the first of Szalay's novels to be translated and the sixth by the writer, who had already been a finalist for the Booker Prize with All that man is (2016).