A former literary editor at Scotland on Sunday has been picked as a judge for next year’s Man Booker Prize for Fiction.

Stuart Kelly, who is a regular book reviewer for sister title The Scotsman, is one of the five judges for the prestigious literary prize which will be presented next October.

The judges are chaired by author and Cambridge University academic Robert Macfarlane and also on the panel is BBC presenter Martha Kearney, writer and broadcaster Natalie Haynes, and biographer and academic Robert Douglas-Fairhurst.

Mr Macfarlane said:  “We are all looking forward to the ten months, 140 novels and many meetings and conversations that lie ahead of us, as we search for the very best of contemporary fiction.”

Stuart was literary editor at Scotland on Sunday until October last year and is the author of The Book of Lost Books and Scott-land, the latter which is about Walter Scott’s cultural influence.