Man Booker International Prize 2009

[Stewart]

Judging Panel Announced

The judging panel of the Man Booker International Prize is announced today, Wednesday 19 March, 2008. Chaired by writer Jane Smiley, this eminent international panel consists of writer, academic and musician, Amit Chaudhuri, and writer, film script writer, and essayist, Andrey Kurkov.

Fiammetta Rocco, administrator of the prize, comments:

"Each of our three judges for the Man Booker International Prize 2009 is expert on a vastly different area of world literature. Knowledgeable as writers as well as readers, they will together bring a high degree of excellence, enthusiasm and experience to the task ahead."

The Man Booker International Prize recognizes one writer for their achievement in fiction. Worth £60,000 to the winner, the prize is awarded once every two years to a living author who has published fiction either originally in English or whose work is generally available in translation in the English language.

The winner is chosen solely at the discretion of the judging panel; there are no submissions from publishers. Nigerian writer, Chinua Achebe, won the 2007 prize and Albanian writer, Ismail Kadare won the inaugural prize in 2005 and went on to gain worldwide recognition for his work. In addition, there is a separate prize for translation and, if applicable, the winner can choose a translator of his or her work into English to receive a prize of £15,000.

The judges' list of contenders, approximately fifteen writers under serious consideration for the prize, will be announced in New York in early spring 2009. The winner of the Man Booker International Prize 2009 will be announced in early summer 2009. The prize will be presented at an awards ceremony, shortly after the winner is announced.

The prize is sponsored by Man Group plc, which also sponsors the Man Booker Prize for Fiction.

The Man Booker International Prize is significantly different from the annual Man Booker Prize for Fiction in that it highlights one writer's overall contribution to fiction on the world stage. In seeking out literary excellence the judges consider a writer's body of work rather than a single novel. So, now that the prize is, in effect, about to get underway, who do we think is going to take it next year?

Last year's candidates were, excluding Chinua Achebe, who won:

• Margaret Atwood
• John Banville
• Peter Carey
• Don DeLillo
• Carlos Fuentes
• Doris Lessing
• Ian McEwan
• Harry Mulisch
• Alice Munro
• Michael Ondaatje
• Amos Oz
• Philip Roth
• Salman Rushdie
• Michel Tournier

I think that, since it's only the award's third prize giving, it's still trying to establish itself as an international award (like the Nobel and Neustadt) and therefore may want to recognise an author on another continent. So, we've had Europe, we've had Africa. So Asia or the Americas perhaps - deliberately exclusing Oceania since it's had a fine showing in the regular Booker.