The
2012 Booker Prize for Fiction was awarded on 16 October 2012. A longlist of twelve titles was announced on 25 July, and these were narrowed down to a shortlist of six titles, announced on 11 September. The jury was chaired by
Sir Peter Stothard, editor of the
Times Literary Supplement, accompanied by literary critics
Dinah Birch and
Bharat Tandon, historian and biographer Amanda Foreman, and
Dan Stevens, actor of
Downton Abbey fame with a background English Literature studies. The jury was faced with the controversy of the 2011 jury, whose approach had been seen as overly populist. Whether or not as a response to this, the 2012 jury strongly emphasised the value of literary quality and linguistic innovation as criteria for inclusion.