The announcement took place at a launch ceremony at the British Library, Wednesday 13 March 2013.

Worth £40,000, The Folio Prize will recognise and celebrate the best English-language fiction from around the world, published in the United Kingdom in any given year regardless of form, genre or the author’s country of origin. It is the first such book prize and the inaugural award will take place in March 2014.

A unique aspect of The Folio Prize is the Academy. A body of over 100 highly respected writers and critics from around the world, The Folio Prize Academy will play a key role in the process by which books are selected and considered each year. Every year, the five judges who will decide on the winning book will be drawn from the Folio Prize Academy.

The Folio Prize Academy reads like a Who's Who of literature today, with such celebrated figures as Margaret Atwood, John Banville, A. S. Byatt, Peter Carey, J. M. Coetzee, Michael Cunningham, Bret Easton Ellis, Sebastian Faulks, A. L. Kennedy, Ian McEwan, Michael Ondaatje, Philip Pullman, Salman Rushdie, Zadie Smith, Colm Tóibín and Jeanette Winterson.

Sponsorship of The Folio Prize is something of which The Folio Society is very proud – it represents an exciting opportunity to promote the best fiction in the English language today.

“The founders of this initiative could not be any more thrilled about our sponsorship by The Folio Society, whose generosity has given birth to The Folio Prize. I know that they and we are as one in our ambition to connect as many great books with as many readers as possible, and we look forward to a long and fruitful association.”
Andrew Kidd, co-founder of The Folio Prize
“I think The Folio Prize will be a great addition to the current range of literary prizes. I have always admired the Folio Society’s dedication to the book as a physical object, and I think their generous sponsorship of this new prize is a recognition that while literature can become manifest in many different forms, the book – the codex – is at the heart of what we understand literature to be. I look forward to seeing the Folio Prize firmly established, and (of course) to reading the first shortlist and celebrating the first winner”.
Philip Pullman, author and member of the Folio Prize Academy
"The Folio Society pays loving and meticulous attention to the books they publish – their edition of ‘The Handmaid's Tale’ is now definitive. I'm sure The Folio Prize will be of equally high quality: much needed in a world in which money is increasingly becoming the measure of all things."
Margaret Atwood, author and member of The Folio Prize Academy

The Folio Prize Academy
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