De Waal and Collins to judge the 2024 Booker Prize

Edmund de Waal, Sara Collins and Justine Jordan are among those judging the 2024 Booker Prize, organisers have announced, as submissions open for publishers.

Artist and author de Waal will chair the panel and is joined by award-winning novelist Collins along with Guardian fiction editor Jordan, writer and professor Yiyun Li and musician Nitin Sawhney.

They will search for the best works of long-form fiction by writers of any nationality, written in English and published in the UK and Ireland between 1st October 2023 and 30th September 2024.

The "Booker Dozen" of 12 or 13 books will be announced in July 2024, with the shortlist of six books to follow in September. The winner will be announced in November with the winner receiving £50,000, as well as the £2,500 awarded to each of the six shortlisted authors.

De Waal said: “Fiction expands us. Novels bring proximity to worlds and lives and voices that we may not have been aware of, taking us from what we know into what we can only imagine. They renew language, change the shape of storytelling and above everything else bring deep and enduring pleasure.

“The great ambition of the Booker Prize is to explore contemporary fiction without preconceptions, and I am so privileged to be sharing my year of reading with such a gloriously distinguished and vigorous group of fellow explorers. I am looking forward to being part of the best book club ever.”

Gaby Wood, Booker Prize Foundation c.e.o., said: “This year’s judges are perceptive readers, creative thinkers, seasoned collaborators. All of them are writers, but between them they also have backgrounds in science, law, music and art. Their lived experience spans the globe.

“If the purpose of literature is, in part, to bridge a gap – to allow us to see the world from another point of view and to draw people together – then the 2024 panel couldn’t be better equipped to recommend works to readers that will get them thinking and talking. I’m looking forward to hearing this group’s discussions as they discover great writing over the coming year.”

This year’s winner was Prophet Song by Paul Lynch, whose UK sales increased by 1,630% in the week after his win. UK publisher Oneworld has already printed 230,000 more copies.

Publishers should visit thebookerprizes.com/submissions to enter their books for the prize. Deadlines are staggered between 29th January and 3rd June 2024.