Video footage from The Folio Prize launch

The Folio Prize was launched at The Folio Society Gallery in the British Library in London on Wednesday 13 March.

Folio Prize Academician Lawrence Norfolk writes in his blog:

Every time I’ve put on a bow-tie, I’ve hated it. This could be the prize for me. Launched last night at the British Library by the agent Andrew Kidd and the managing director of the Folio Society, Toby Hartwell, the Folio Prize will be worth £40,000, the winner selected from a list proposed by an ‘academy’….Behind the process lies a writerly variant of peer-review. Whichever book wins the first Folio Prize in March 2014 will command the respect of authors as well as readers.

I swigged Champagne and discussed the early life of Elizabeth I with AS Byatt, birthdays with Alexandra Pringle, film finance with Matt Thorne, the recording of Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band with (trombonist) Toby Hartwell and the imminent publication of the second volume of Karl Ove Knausgaard’s ‘My Struggle’ with David Miller. Now all I have to do is start thinking about which three books to choose. That feels like a good problem to have.