The full judging panel for the 2013 Man Booker Prize
for Fiction is announced today, Monday 17 December 2012.
The judges are: Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, Natalie Haynes, Martha Kearney and
Stuart Kelly. The panel is chaired by Robert Macfarlane,
academic, critic and writer.
Robert Macfarlane comments on behalf of the panel:
‘The first books are in, and the reading begins: the
2013 Man Booker jury starts its work this week. I am fortunate to be joined on
this year's panel by four outstanding judges: the renowned broadcaster,
bee-keeper and former Chair of the Orange Prize for Fiction, Martha Kearney;
the critic, academic and prize-winning biographer, Robert Douglas-Fairhurst;
the broadcaster, classicist and critic, Natalie Haynes; and Stuart Kelly,
essayist, polymath and former literary editor of Scotland on Sunday. We
are all looking forward to the ten months, 140 novels and many meetings and
conversations that lie ahead of us, as we search for the very best of
contemporary fiction.’
The judges’ mission is to select
as a winner the novel of the highest literary quality from the past year.
Between them, they will read over 100 novels submitted by UK publishers.
The judges will announce the 2013 ‘Man Booker Dozen’ –
12 or 13 longlisted books – on 23 July 2013, with the shortlist of six
outstanding titles announced on 10 September 2013. The winner of the 2013 Man
Booker Prize for Fiction will be announced on Tuesday 15 October 2013, at an
awards ceremony at London’s Guildhall.
On the impact of the prize, former winner Howard
Jacobson has commented: ‘I have seen from the
inside the interest it generates, the new readers it finds, not just for
winning the book, but – if that book has the power to stimulate – for
literature in general. Books I wrote years ago, which I thought were long
buried, have been touched back into life…’.
2013 will mark the 45th year of the £50,000
prize, launched in 1969. Hilary Mantel made
history in 2012 when she won the prize for the second time with Bring up the
Bodies, as the first woman and the first
British author to win the prize twice.
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