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Man Booker winner Alan Hollinghurst is to chair the judging panel for the 2019 Desmond Elliott Prize.
Hollinghurst, author of the 2004 Man Booker Prize-winning The Line of Beauty (Picador), will be joined on the panel by the the Times literary editor Robbie Millen and Booksellers Association c.e.o. Meryl Halls to find the novel they believe is most worthy of winning the £10,000 prize and being crowned the best debut of the last 12 months. The judges will be looking for vividly written novels with a compelling narrative and arresting characters.
Hollinghurst said: “I’m really delighted to have been asked to chair the judging panel for the 2019 Desmond Elliott Prize. It’s a prize that rewards the courage as well as the skill of new writers — the ones who will go on to shape the reading landscape of the future. As a judge, I know only to expect the unexpected, those surprises of story, voice and viewpoint with which a first novelist can suddenly enlarge our sense of what the novel — that wonderful, inexhaustible form — is capable of. It will be a fascinating experience.”
Last year, the Prize was awarded to Preti Taneja for her debut novel We That Are Young (Galley Beggar Press), subsequently described at its US publication as “a work of epic scope and depth”. Other past winners include Francis Spufford, Lisa McInerney and Eimear McBride. The prize is presented in the name of the late publisher and literary agent Desmond Elliott.
Dallas Manderson, chair of trustees for the prize, said: “The Desmond Elliott Prize has a long history of outstanding judging panels and in 2019 we once again welcome a panel of judges who are leaders in their respective fields. It is an important task that lays before them, but I have no doubt that they will do a tremendous job and look forward to discovering the novel they choose to be this year’s winner.”
A longlist of 10 books will be announced in April and a shortlist in May. The winner will be revealed at a ceremony at Fortnum & Mason on 19th June and presented with a cheque for £10,000.