Doughty on attack ahead of Booker prize

One of the judges of this year's Man Booker Prize for fiction, the novelist Louise Doughty (pictured), has launched an attack on male academics who sit on literary judging panels. Doughty, who made her remarks on the eve of tonight’s announcement of the 2008 winner, said such men should not be invited on to judging panels as they tend to pick a "highbrow" author rather than a readable one.

Speaking to the Independent, she said: "I don't think it's a good idea to have academics as judges on these prizes. Academics always have their eye on their reputations and always have a vested interest to pick someone as literary and obscure as possible. I think academics are always looking over their shoulder. Academics automatically feel it [the choice of Booker winner] will reflect on their career."

Doughty, who has five novels to her name, believes it is the accessibility of authors such as Sebastian Faulks, Mark Haddon and Robert Harris - none of whom have won the £50,000 Booker - which count against them.

But John Sutherland, Emeritus professor of English literature at University College London, who was chair of the Booker panel in 2005, said Doughty's allegations "sound bonkers to me". Sutherland cast the winning vote for John Banville for The Sea when Banville was seen as the least commercial of the contenders. He said: "Academics are not over-represented on the Man Booker, but they are on the James Tait Black Memorial which often, in my view, makes better decisions. It's analogous to the issue [of] whether sports journalists (who've never kicked a ball in anger) or ex-football stars make the best soccer commentators. A mixture of both seems to work well."

Doughty counters this by recalling a panel debate at the Cheltenham Literary Festival last year in which a male academic admitted he made a decision against awarding Graham Greene a prize, years ago, because his book had been "too readable". She added: "I think there are academics who think readability itself disqualifies the book from literary greatness, which is complete and utter nonsense.” She went on: “I think women academics are a hell of a lot less poncey than male ones. They have had a battle to get there and they are more open and less anxious about their reputations."

That said, she commended the choice of the Man Booker judging panel this year, which is chaired by former Tory cabinet minister Michael Portillo, and includes no male academics.

The winner was due to be announced in London tonight. The six shortlisted are: Philip Hensher, for The Northern Clemency; Sebastian Barry, for The Secret Scripture (the current booker's favourite); Aravind Adiga, for The White Tiger; Amitav Ghosh, for Sea of Poppies; Linda Grant, for The Clothes on Their Backs, and Steve Toltz, for A Fraction of the Whole.