Booker judges announced

Mich?le Roberts
Michele Roberts: Booker judge

The judging panel chosen for the 33rd Booker Prize, announced yesterday, shows a disdain for the 'celebrity' panellist in favour of novelists, poets and academics.

Chair of the judging panel is Kenneth Baker, formerly Conservative minister of education, now Lord Barker of Dorking and compiler of poetry anthologies.

He will be joined by writer Philip Hensher, a prolific book reviewer whose novel Kitchen Venom won the Somerset Maugham award in 1996; novelist and poet Michèle Roberts, whose 1992 novel Daughters of the House was itself shortlisted for the Booker Prize; Kate Summerscale, literary editor of the Daily Telegraph and writer of the acclaimed biography of eccentric cross-dressing heiress Joe Carstairs; and Rory Watson, Professor of English Studies at the University of Stirling.

Unlike the Whitbread Prize, which has famously included Jerry Hall and Tim Rice on its judging panel, the Booker tends to select more high-brow arbiters in keeping with its claim to be the most prestigious literary accolade. Last year's panel, which chose Margaret Atwood's The Blind Assassin as the winner, raised eyebrows for its inclusion of broadcaster Mariella Frostrup.

• The shortlisted books will be announced in mid-September with the winner announced on 17 October.

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