The judging panel for the 2006 Prince Maurice Award for literary love stories is announced today. Chaired by the prize�s president, Tim Lott � novelist, journalist and travel writer � the judges represent a wide range of artistic, literary and international interests.

The 2006 panel of judges boasts a stellar line-up of writers both established and new. They are: Helen Dunmore, novelist and poet; Mel Finn, first-time novelist, longlisted for this year�s Orange Prize; Howard Jacobson, bestselling comic and literary novelist; Professor Blake Morrison, novelist, journalist, poet and critic; Matt Thorne, novelist, journalist and literary critic; Jacqueline Wilson, newly-appointed children�s laureate and most borrowed author in UK libraries

Plus the regular Mauritian judges, authors: Francois Antelme; Alain Gordon-Gentil; Carl de Souza.

The Prince Maurice Award is awarded to an English-speaking writer every second year (alternating with a French-speaking winner). The judges will be considering novels published in the two years up to the end of 2005. Last year�s winner was Buddha Da by Anne Donovan (Canongate), the story of a Glaswegian housepainter who, after converting to Buddhism, faces losing his whole family because of his growing spiritual beliefs. The 2004 judges � among them Jonathan Coe, Clive Anderson and Miranda Carter - found it to be �suffused with the spirit of love�.

Other books on the 2004 final shortlist were Timoleon Vieta Please Come Home by Dan Rhodes and Daughters of Jerusalem by Charlotte Mendelson.

All UK publishers will be asked to submit one title for this prize later this month, with the closing date for entries in October.

Tim Lott comments: �This prize celebrates fine writing about the theme arguably most fundamental to all art and literature � that of love. Whether defined romantically, religiously, in terms of family or friendship, or even nationally and culturally, the Prince Maurice Prize aims to give writers of the heart the same chance of recognition as writers of �the head� � although the two, of course, are by no means mutually exclusive.�

Le Prince Maurice hotel is one of the world�s most elegant five-star resorts. With this prize, the hotel suggests itself as a place where the mind and heart, as well as the body, can be engaged and indulged.

The shortlist will be announced in March 2006, and the judges will announce the winner of The Prince Maurice Award at an awards ceremony at Le Prince Maurice in May 2006. The winner will receive a trophy and an all expenses paid two-week �writer�s retreat� at Le Prince Maurice.

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Notes to Editors

� Photographs are available. Tim Lott and the judges may be available for interview. Please contact Colman Getty.

� Le Prince Maurice Hotel is located on the north-east of Mauritius. Le Prince Maurice is one of only 17 hotels in the world to have been awarded 'palace' status by Relais & Ch�teaux. The hotel is set within 60 acres of tropical gardens with three beaches and its own cool, sapphire lagoon of reef-protected shallows. The use of wood, stone and thatch gives the property a contemporary Balinese atmosphere, while the main entrance gives way to mirrored pools, a 40-metre slate-lined infinity pool curving out towards the beach. Some of the hotel's colonial-style suites are built on stilts over a natural fish reserve, while the large senior suites face the sea and have private plunge pools and sunken Jacuzzis in the gardens. The hotel has a floating restaurant, Le Barachois, which is reached by a snaking gangplank, navigable through twisting mangrove trees.

Since its opening in November 1998, the hotel has been welcoming numerous well-known personalities.

� The Patron of the Award will be announced later in the year.

� The judges 1. Tim Lott � President & Chair of Judges - Tim Lott has founded several successful businesses and worked as a broadcaster, magazine editor and television producer. His books include The Scent of Dried Roses which was awarded the J. R. Ackerley Prize for Autobiography and White City Blue which won the Whitbread First Novel Award. His latest novel, The Seymour Tapes, was published in May 2005. 2. Helen Dunmore is one of the few contemporary writers equally at home in poetry and fiction. Since her debut novel, Zennor in Darkness (1993) she has sold over 300,000 books. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. 3. Melanie Finn was born and raised in Kenya and educated in the US. She has lived and worked on four continents as a journalist, screenwriter, ranch hand, documentary film-maker, ski-bum and waitress. Her first novel, Away with You, was longlisted for the 2005 Orange Prize. 4. Howard Jacobson is a bestselling novelist and journalist who won the Everyman Wodehouse Award for comic writing in 1999 for The Mighty Walzer. 5. Professor Blake Morrison is a journalist, critic, poet, and writer of fiction and non-fiction. His works include And When Did You Last See Your Father? an honest and moving account of his father's life and death that won the J. R. Ackerley Prize and the Esquire/Volvo/Waterstone's Non-Fiction Book Award. 6. Matt Thorne is a novelist, journalist and literary critic. His most recent novel, Cherry, was longlisted for the 2004 Man Booker Prize. 7. Jacqueline Wilson is a children�s author who has been on countless shortlists and has won many awards, including the Smarties Prize, and the Children's Book Award. Jacqueline Wilson has sold millions of books - her total stands at over 20 million in the UK alone. In 2002 Jacqueline was given an OBE for services to literacy in schools, and in 2005 she was appointed Children�s Laureate.

For further information and press enquiries please contact: Ruth Cairns or Dotti Irving at Colman Getty PR 020 7631 2666 / ruth@colmangettypr.co.uk

Lucie Higginson at Mason Rose (PR for Le Prince Maurice) 020 7235 3245 / lucie@masonrose.com