Australian Richard Flanagan, the author of The Narrow Road to the Deep North, has won the Man Booker Prize 2014. As you've probably got a new book to start reading, here's a quick guide to one of the richest and most prestigious literary prizes in the world.

Why is it called the Man Booker Prize?

The prize was sans the Man when it was founded by British food wholesaler Booker McConnell Ltd in 1968. It was named the Booker Prize for Fiction and offered British or Commonwealth novelists the chance to win £5000 ($9140). Here's the article that was published in the Guardian at the time about the new prize. P.H. Newby was the inaugural winner in April 1969 for his novel Something to Answer For. The prize was renamed the Man Booker Prize in 2002, after the investment management business Man became a sponsor. The winning author now takes home £50,000 ($91,400), while those who make the shortlist pocket £2500 ($4500).

What are the rules?

A major change was made to the Man Book rule book this year. For the first time in the prize's 46-year history, entry was opened up to writers of any nationality, as long as their novels were written originally in English and published in the UK. This ruffled feathers in the literary world, with high-profile former winners Peter Carey, A.S Byatt and Graham Swift all criticising the move. Of the 154 books entered in this year's prize, 44 were by authors who previously would have been ineligible. Other rules: authors must be living at the time of the award, self-published books are not allowed and entries must be published in the previous 12 months.

Who was on this year's judging panel? 

The number of judges increased this year from five to six - with three of them new to the panel. The Booker Prize Foundation Advisory Committee, a registered charity responsible for the award of the prize, selects the judges. This year they were: Oxford Professor of English Literature and biographer Jonathan Bate, UEA's Professor of American Literature Sarah Churchwell,  neuroscientist and cultural commentator Dr Daniel Glaser, former Director of Literature at the British Council and at the Arts Council Dr Alastair Niven, journalist and writer Erica Wagner and philosopher and writer AC Grayling (who was also chair of the panel).

Have there been any major controversies?

There have been plenty. A moment that has gone down in infamy in Booker history was novelist Anthony Burgess' refusal to attend the 1980 award ceremony unless he knew in advance that he would win. He didn't get his guarantee and on the night his book Earthly Powers lost to William Golding's Rites of Passage.  In 1993, Iriving Welsh's Trainspotting was rejected for the shortlist after two judges threatened to walk out because the novel reportedly offended their "feminist sensibilities". The Scottish writer and former judge A.L. Kennedy also created a stir in 2001 when she called the prize "a pile of crooked nonsense" saying "who knows who, who's sleeping with who, who's selling drugs to who, who's married to who, whose turn it is".

What's the longest and shortest novel to win? 

The longest winning novel was Eleanor Catton's 832-paged The Luminaries in 2013. The shortest was Penelope Fitzgerald's novel Offshore at 132 pages, in 1979. According to this data analysis from last year, the average winning book length in 374 pages.

How many times can you win? 

Only three authors have won the Man Booker Prize twice. J.M. Coetzee was the first novelist to win twice (in 1999 and 1983) and then Peter Carey (1988 and 2011). Hilary Mantel is the first woman and the first British author to be awarded the prize twice.

What was the Lost Man Booker Prize?

In 1971, the Booker Prize stopped being awarded retrospectively and instead became a prize for the best novel of the year of publication. This meant a trove of fiction published in 1970 couldn't be in the running for the prize. In 2008, the one-off Lost Man Booker Prize was awarded posthumously to J.G. Farrell for Troubles. He had also won in 1973 for The Siege of Krishnapur.

Do men or women win more often?

Men. Overwhelmingly. Forty-five writers have won the Man Booker Prize - 31 are men. Ten out of the 13 books selected for this year's longlist were written by men, as were four out of the six shortlisted books.

Which Australian authors have won?

Thomas Keneally was the first Australian to take home the prize for Schindler's Ark (1982), then Peter Carey for Oscar and Lucinda (1988) and True History of the Kelly Gang (2001). There was Australian-born DBC Pierre's Vernon God Little (2003). Now, of course, Richard Flanagan has taken the prize home for The Narrow Road to the Deep North.

Do the judges ever name two winners?

They did twice, but not any more. The prize was split between Nadine Gordimer and Stanley Middleton in 1974 and Michael Ondaatje and Barry Unsworth in 1992. The rules were then changed so that only one book was able to win.

Read a chapter from Richard Flanagan's Man Booker Prize winning novel

October Free Chapter - The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan by RandomHouseAU