Chigozie Obioma is on the recently announced judging panel of the 2021 Booker Prize.

The chair of this year’s committee is Harvard historian Maya Jasanoff. Joining Obioma on the committee are former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, writer and editor Horatia Harrod, and actor Natascha McElhone.

In an Instagram post, Obioma notes that he is “truly truly honored” to be on the panel.

The Booker Prize for Fiction, one of the world’s most prestigious literary honors for a single work of fiction, annually awards £50,000 to a writer of any nationality published in English. Obioma is no stranger to the prize, and is notable for his record consecutive shortlisting for his first and second novel. He is the first, and currently the only African, to achieve this.

Other African literary figures who have been on the panels for Booker Prizes include the trailblazing Ghanaian editor and publisher Margaret Busby, who chaired the 2020 panel, as well as Chika Unigwe and Elnathan John, who were on the panels for the Man Booker International Prize for Fiction in 2017 and 2019 respectively.

Submissions for the 2021 prize open on December 16th, 2020. A longlist of 12 or 13 books will be announced in July 2021, and the shortlist in autumn. The winner will be announced in November 2021.

More details on the panel can be found here.