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
2012 Man Booker Prize long hiatus of publishing, and novelist débutantes Alison Moore and Jeet Thayil. In the days and weeks leading up to the announcement of the winner, both media commentators and bookmakers considered Mantel and Self favourites to win, with the other four nominees ranked as outsiders. The 2011 Man Booker Prize attracted a great deal of negative press. The jury's chair, General Director of the MI5 turned spy fiction writer Dame Stella Rimington, was criticised for her statement that what the jury was looking for in the winner was "readability". Likewise, jury member Chris Mullin, a former Labour MP, stated that