Wednesday, December 17, 2008


Judging panel announced for 2009 Man Booker Prize for Fiction

http://www.themanbookerprize.com/

The judging panel for the 2009 Man Booker Prize for Fiction is announced today, 17 December 2008.

The line-up consists of Lucasta Miller, biographer and critic; Michael Prodger, Literary Editor of The Sunday Telegraph; John Mullan, academic, journalist and broadcaster and Sue Perkins, comedian and broadcaster. James Naughtie, one of the country’s best-known broadcasters, was announced as Chair of the Judges in November.
Pic shows judges minus the Chairman.

Ion Trewin, Literary Director of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction, describes the 2009 Judging panel as: ‘A team of all the talents, wide-ranging in their specialist knowledge, but united in their passion for fiction.’

The 2008 winner, The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga, a first novel, ‘shocked and entertained in equal measure’, said the judges. It has since gone on to sell over 285,000 copies in the UK and has now been sold to publishers for translation in at least 26 other countries.

The longlist, ‘The Booker Dozen’ – the 12 (or 13) titles under serious consideration for the prize - will be announced in early August. The shortlist of six books will be announced in early September.
The Man Booker Prize 2009 winner will be televised live on the BBC Ten O’Clock News at Guildhall at an awards ceremony on Tuesday 6th October 2009.

THE JUDGES

Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2009
Judges’ biographical details


James Naughtie- Chair of Judges
James Naughtie is one of the country’s best-known broadcasters. During his career, Naughtie has anchored BBC radio coverage of British and American presidential elections and has written and introduced numerous documentaries and programmes for BBC Radio and television. As an author, he has written two books on contemporary politics, The Rivals – The Story of a Political Marriage, and The Accidental American – Tony Blair and the Presidency. His book, The Making of Music, based on his Radio 4 series, an account of the Western classical tradition, was published in paperback this year. Naughtie is connected with a number of arts organisations and charities, is a member of the advisory board of the Edinburgh International Festival, a patron of the Prince of Wales Foundation for Children and the Arts, a trustee of the Classical Opera Company, a trustee of the Art Fund Prize for museums and galleries and a patron of Southbank Sinfonia. In 2008 he was appointed Chancellor of the University of Stirling. He is also a former chairman of judges of the BBC FOUR Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-fiction.

Lucasta Miller
Lucasta Miller is best known as the author of The Bronte Myth and has worked for many years as a critic, most recently for The Guardian Review. She is now writing a second book, Bluestockings and Cads: Four Stories of Biography and Scandal, which will be published by Jonathan Cape in 2010. She is married to the tenor Ian Bostridge and has two children.

Michael Prodger
Michael Prodger has been a literary journalist for many years and is Literary Editor of The Sunday Telegraph. He also writes regularly on art for a number of publications, including The Sunday Telegraph, Standpoint and The Spectator. He was a judge on the BBC FOUR Samuel Johnson Prize in 2006.

John Mullan
John Mullan is Professor of English at University College London. He is the author of Anonymity. A Secret History of English Literature (Faber) and How Novels Work (Oxford University Press). He has published widely on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century literature. He is also a broadcaster and journalist, writing a regular column on contemporary fiction for The Guardian. He was a judge for Best of the Booker in 2008.

Sue Perkins
Sue Perkins is a comedian, presenter, broadcaster and scriptwriter. She regularly appears on radio and television programmes such as Newsnight Review, Have I Got News For You, Just a Minute and The News Quiz. Sue is currently filming the second series of the critically acclaimed BBC2 show, The Supersizers Go, where she eats offal and cow brains in restrictive corsetry. In September, Sue won the BBC Maestro competition, thereby getting the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to conduct at the Last Night of the Proms in Hyde Park in front of 40,000 people.

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