Sex and the City star Sarah Jessica Parker has joined the jury of the 2025 Man Booker Prize, UNN reports citing The Guardian.
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The choice of Sarah Jessica Parker to present the most prestigious British art award may seem strange, but the Sex and the City star has established herself in the book industry in recent years. In 2016, she began working as an editorial director at SJP for Hogarth, A Penguin imprint, before launching her own division, SJP Lit, in partnership with independent publisher Zando last year. She also shares book recommendations on her Instagram account.
However, Gaby Wood, CEO of the Booker Prize Foundation, said that recently she enjoyed watching book selection recommendations with Sarah Jessica, who has been supporting contemporary fiction for many years.
Sarah Jessica Parker follows other actors who have evaluated the prize in recent rounds, including Ajoa Ando and Robert Webb, who said it was "impossible"to read the number of assigned books. To receive the 2024 prize, each judge had to read more than 150 novels in seven months.
"I think of judges as scientists, educated, experienced, which I simply am not. I don't have any diplomas," says the actress.
The 2025 jury will be led by Radio Doyle, who won an award in 1993 for Paddy Clark's book Hahaha. Two authors who were previously included in the long list: Ayobami Adebaiọ, whose novel "spells of good things" made the long list last year, and Kylie Reid, who was included in the long list in 2020 for the novel "such a fun age".
The award is currently open for submission from publishers. Judges will review works of great fiction by writers of any nationality written in English and published in the UK and/or Ireland between 1 October 2024 and 30 September 2025. The Booker Dozen longlist will consist of 12 or 13 titles and will be announced in July, the shortlist will be announced in September, and the winner, who will receive £50,000, will be announced in November.
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