Anam and Padel on Man Booker International Prize judging panel

Novelist Tahmima Anam and poet and author Ruth Padel are among the judges for the 2016 Man Booker International Prize.

This will be the first panel for the newly configured award, which joined forces with the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize earlier this year.

From 2016 the prize will be awarded annually for a single book, translated into English and published in the UK. Both novels and collections of short stories are eligible. The work of translators will be directly rewarded, with the new £50,000 prize being divided equally between the author and the translator of the winning entry.

The prize panel will be chaired by the Independent’s Boyd Tonkin. Also on the panel are academic David Bellos, who is currently professor of French and comparative literature and director of the program in translation and intercultural communication at Princeton University, and editor and academic Daniel Medin, who holds a comparative literature professorship at the American University of Paris (AUP).

Fiammetta Rocco, administrator of the prize, said: "The judges of the Man Booker International Prize 2016 together have a diverse and unparalleled knowledge of international literature. Encompassing award-winning writers, translators and editors themselves, their enthusiasm and expertise will ensure that our newly configured prize recognises the very best of translated fiction.”

The judges will select a longlist of 12 or 13 books in March 2016, followed by a shortlist of six books in April 2016. The winner will be announced at a ceremony in London in May 2016.