International Fiction Prize
Bill Buford was editor of Granta magazine for 15 years, and since April 1995 has been fiction and literary editor of the New Yorker.
Douglas Kennedy's novel The Big Picture was a bestseller in the United States. His previous novel, The Dead Heart, was filmed as Welcome to Woop Woop and his most recent novel, The Job, has just been published in paperback.
Mary Morrissy is a staff journalist with The Irish Times, whose first collection of short stories, A Lazy Eye, was published in 1993 and whose first novel, Mother of Pearl, received critical acclaim when it was published in 1996.
Irish Literature Prizes
Pat Donlon, a former director of the National Library of Ireland, is at present a research fellow in the faculty of Applied Arts, Dublin Institute of Technology.
Dr Richard Kearney is a professor of philosophy at UCD and visiting European professor of philosophy at Boston College.
Julia Neuberger became a rabbi in 1977 and served at the South London Liberal Synagogue for 12 years. She has been chancellor of the University of Ulster since 1994.
Irish Language Prize
Aine NI Ghlinn is a poet and journalist who has published three collections of poetry.
Diarmaid O Muirithe recently retired from the Department of Irish Language and Literature in UCD. He is the author of The Irish Times Saturday column, The Words We Use.
Alan Titley is head of the Irish Department at St Patrick's College, Drumcondra, Dublin, and is a novelist, story writer, dramatist and literary scholar.