The Folio Prize Festival, The British Library

A new literary prize is a good excuse to bring out the bunting – they may have their detractors, but the fact remains that prizes encourage people to read and give the book industry a much-needed boost. So it can be no bad thing that The Folio Society – quality publishers of beautifully produced books – is celebrating the advent of its inaugural prize by hosting a two-day literary festival at the British Library.

The Folio Prize will be awarded each year to the best fiction written in English, in any genre, in any form, from anywhere in the world. The five judges will be selected by lot from the members of the newly created Folio Prize Academy, which already boasts a formidable roll call of world-class authors and critics. For this first year the judges have been named as Michael Chabon, Nam Le, Sarah Hall and Pankaj Mishra, with Lavinia Greenlaw as chair – an eminent crowd indeed.

The festival itself features panel discussions with Academy members and judges, as well as the shortlisted authors, with book signings afterwards. Each event will be thoughtfully curated around one of five elements that are essential to great fiction: Voice, Genre, Structure, Context and Place. With their distinctive, poetic styles, Lavinia Greenlaw and Ali Smith are well placed to lead a discussion ‘On Voice’; Sebastian Faulks, Nam Le and guests will be tackling ‘On Place’; innovators Michael Chabon and Mark Haddon will explore the possibilities of Genre, and particularly interesting will be the great novelist and academic A. S. Byatt talking Structure with young Booker-Prize-nominated author Sarah Hall.

The shortlist of eight titles is announced on February 10, and the ceremony (in which the winner will be awarded a tidy £40,000) will follow after the festival weekend, on March 10. With such literary clout behind it, this is sure to be one of the weightier and more coveted prizes of the future. Get in there quick and you can say you were there when it all began.