2012 Man Booker Prize bookmakers had Self at slightly better odds than Mantel, with the others somewhat behind. On 16 October, shortly after 21:40, jury chair Peter Stothard announced that the winner of the 2012 Man Booker Prize was Hilary Mantel for her "Bring Up the Bodies". By winning, Mantel became the first woman to win the Booker Prize twice, as well as the first British author to do so (South African J. M. Coetzee and Australian Peter Carey have won the award twice each). Mantel joked that "[y]ou wait 20 years for a Booker Prize; two come along at once". She added: "I
Booker Prize changes each year, although on rare occasions a judge may be selected a second time. Judges are selected from amongst leading literary critics, writers, academics and leading public figures. The Booker judging process and the very concept of a "best book" being chosen by a small number of literary insiders is controversial for many. The Guardian introduced the "Not the Booker Prize" voted for by readers partly as a reaction to this. Author Amit Chaudhuri wrote "The idea that a “book of the year” can be assessed annually by a bunch of people – judges who have to read almost