New Folio Prize literary award to rival Man Booker

A NEW literary award to rival the well-established Man Booker is to be relaunched as the Folio Prize and will be worth £40,000 to the winner, following sponsorship.

Until now the award had simply been called the Literature Prize, but has now been officially launched after The Folio Society was announced as sponsor.

The prize will be open to works of English language fiction published in the UK, regardless of the country of origin, and will be awarded for the first time in March of next year.

A panel of literary figures will make up the Folio Prize Academy and they will read a total of 80 books and draw up a shortlist of eight titles, which will be announced in February.

Philip Pullman, author of the Northern Lights trilogy, said: “I think The Folio Prize will be a great addition to the current range of literary prizes.”