Former spy to chair Man Booker Prize 2011

The Bookseller - 16.11.10

Former MI5 boss Stella Rimington is to chair next's year's Booker Prize, taking over the role from poet Andrew Motion. An official announcement has not yet been made, but the appointment was confirmed today by Booker's PR agency Colman Getty.

According to the Times, Rimington will be the only head of the judging panel to have had a book published in the year they judge the prize. Her next book Deep Secret will be published in July 2011. Her publisher is Bloomsbury also the publisher of the current Booker winner Howard Jacobson.

Professor John Sutherland, a one time Booker chair, said Rimington would be a good chair was she was "used to chairing meetings".