David Cohen Prize judges unveiled

 The Bookseller - 25.07.14 | Joshua Farrington -

Booktrust has revealed the judges for the David Cohen Prize for Literature 2015, which awards a £40,000 prize for a lifetime’s achievement in literature.

Mark Lawson will spend a third term as chair of the judges, joined by academic and writer Dame Gillian Beer, biographer Adam Begley, author Melissa Benn, critic Susannah Clapp, poet Blake Morrison, journalist Leo Robson, novelist Kamila Shamsie and poet Michael Symmons Roberts.

The prize was set up in 1992 by David and Veronica Cohen and Arts Council England, and has been given to writers including Harold Pinter, Muriel Spark, Doris Lessing and last year’s winner, Hilary Mantel. The 2015 prize will be presented on 5th March 2015.

Lawson said: “While the Booker honours a single work, the Cohen is considered across a whole career, thus bringing to fresh attention—particularly in the case of Mantel —books that readers may have been unaware of until her recent Man Booker [winners].”