The judging panel for the 2013 Man Booker Prize

The Man Booker Prize judges for 2013 were announced earlier this week, as the literary award heads into its 45th anniversary. The BBC reports that one of its own journalists, Martha Kearney, will join the panel of writers and critics who are charged with determining the best English-language novel by a citizen of the Commonwealth of Nations, Ireland, or Zimbabwe.

In addition to Kearney, the judges for next year’s prize will be Stuart Kelly, Natalie Haynes, Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, and panel chairperson Robert Macfarlane. Macfarlane’s own books have garnered him several awards of his own; his debut, Mountains of the Mind, won the Guardian First Book Award, the Somerset Maugham Award, and the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award. Haynes also has experience in the world of literary prizes, having been a judge for the 2012 Orange Prize for Fiction, given to the UK’s best novel by a female writer.

Macfarlane told the BBC that the judging process has already begun for the prestigious award: “The first books are in, and the reading begins: The 2013 Man Booker jury starts its work this week. We are all looking forward to the 10 months, 140 novels and many meetings and conversations that lie ahead of us, as we search for the very best of contemporary fiction.”

The five judges will announce the longlist of nominees for the Man Booker in July, and the winner will be announced in a ceremony at London’s Guildhall on October 15, 2013.