Novelists David Baddiel, Toby Litt and Julian Barnes join Professor Steve Jones and broadcaster Kirsty Young to judge this years Guardian First Book Award. Alan Rusbridger, editor of the Guardian, and Louise Collinge, marketing manager of Borders, will also be on the judging panel, which will be chaired by Claire Armitstead, literary editor of the Guardian.
The Guardian First Book Award panel reflects the diversity of the award, which aims to recognise an authors first book, whether it is fiction, non-fiction or poetry. The winner will receive a prize of £10,000, an advertising package in the Guardian and Observer and an endowment of £1,000 worth of books to a school of their choice.
Julian Barnes is the internationally acclaimed author of eight novels including Flauberts Parrot, A History of The World in 10 Chapters and England, England. His new novel, Love, Etc, is published later this year. Writer and comedian David Baddiels hugely successful first novel, Time for Bed, is currently being filmed and has been published in over seven countries worldwide. Toby Litt has published two novels, Beatniks and Corpsing, both to great critical acclaim. His debut collection of short stories, Adventures in Capitalism, won the Curtis Brown Award for most promising student of his year on the Creative Writing course at the University of East Anglia.
Steve Jones, Professor of Genetics at UCL, won the Royal Society Faraday Medal for the Public Understanding of Science in 1998. Kirsty Young, co-presenter of the ITV Lunchtime News, was named Newscaster of the Year for her work on Channel 5 News and has also won the Sir James Carreras Award for Outstanding New Talent.
Alongside the selected judging panel, Borders are running reading groups in their stores in London, Glasgow, Cheshire Oaks and York who will help choose the shortlist from the designated longlist.
The longlist will be announced in August and the shortlist in October.
