Author of 'Born on a Tuesday' is a Man Booker Judge!

The judges for the 2019 Man Booker International Prize are announced today as submissions for the 2019 prize open.

The Man Booker International Prize was originally launched in 2005 but was evolved three years ago. 2019 will be the fourth year of the evolved Man Booker International Prize.

Chaired by Bettany Hughes, award-winning historian, author and broadcaster, the panel consists of: writer, translator and president of English PEN Maureen Freely; philosopher Professor Angie Hobbs FRSA; novelist and Nigerian satirist Elnathan John; and essayist and novelist Pankaj Mishra.

Elnathan John is a novelist, lawyer and satirist, whose fiction was shortlisted for the Caine Prize for African Writing in 2013 and 2015. His debut novel, Born on a Tuesday, a coming-of-age novel about Islam, politics and culture set in northern Nigeria, won a Betty Trask award (2017) and was shortlisted for the Nigeria Prize for Literature, the Republic of Consciousness Prize and the 2017 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for Debut Fiction. He lives and works in Berlin.

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There have only been two Nigerian winners of the Man Booker International Prize — Chinua Achebe in 2007 and Ben Okri in 1991. However, the likes of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Chigozie Obioma have been nominated for the prize.

The judging panel will be looking for the best work of translated fiction, selected from entries published in the UK and Ireland between 1 May 2018 and 30 April 2019.