The full judging panel for the 2013 Man Booker Prize for Fiction was announced, Monday 17th 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 23rd July 2013, with the shortlist of six outstanding titles
announced on 10th September 2013. The winner of the 2013 Man Booker Prize
for Fiction will be announced on Tuesday 15th 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…’.
