Meet the Wiltshire bookbinder with a key role in tonight's Booker Prize ceremony

• Kate Holland explains the artistic process of creating a unique design for Booker Prize favourite 'James' by Percival Everett

A book binder from Wiltshire has spent around 150 hours designing and binding a unique copy of one of the novels shortlisted for this year's Booker Prize.

Kate Holland, from Corsley, is a member of the Designer Bookbinders Fellows. She is recognised as having achieved the highest standards of bookbinding in both technique and design.

Every year, the society is asked to create a uniquely bound edition for each one of the Booker Prize Shortlist.

Kate has taken on the challenge and is now due to head to the ceremony this evening to give the one-off copy of James to its author Percival Everett, who is favourite to win this year's prize.

The book is a re-telling of Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, told from the viewpoint of escaped slave 'Jim'. It is the favourite to win this year's Booker Prize.

Kate has spent 150 hours on the binding - including reading the book, researching it, coming up with the design and creating it.

"It’s very much the artistic response to the text," she told ITV News.

"We read the book, we research around it, we try to come up with a design which reflects the story. It’s not just the cover design for a book jacket, it’s the whole book, inside, outside, all the way around.

"Then they get presented to the author at the ceremony.

"We get to sit at the table with the author and go to the champagne reception. It’s the most glamorous part of my job".

It’s the fifth time Kate has been asked to take part in the Booker Prize event. Kate also worked on Percival Everett’s novel ‘The Trees’ which was shortlisted in 2022.

She admits the subject matter for ‘James’ was "difficult".

"It’s very much the slave’s experience of the Deep South," she said. "There’s a lot of anger running through it. Percival Everett is telling a very serious story but with a sense of humour."

Speaking about her design, she said: "I had to reign in my initial response which was all about the whipping and scarring, the blood and the anger, but I thought that wouldn’t be respectful for the people who’ve been through that.

“I went through the book and I chose all the words that expressed the slave experience. So it was hungry, crazy, lawless, troubled. All of these emotive strong words - but underneath those words, I’ve written hope and freedom because that’s what the character Jim is aiming for."

The typeface Kate used for the book's title is the same typeface that would have been used for advertisements for slaves for sale. She also used slave advertisements, wood engravings and a map of the Mississippi River in her design.

"It’s a brilliant job because you get to go really in-depth into a subject you know nothing about.

"Every element in here is bound by my own hands. I then have to hand it over to the author, who obviously has no concept of what the design is like or how I’ve responded to the text.

"Hopefully he will like it - last time he was very kind and enthusiastic, so we’ll see how it goes down."

Kate - who teaches bookbinding at Bath Spa University - said she’s looking forward to putting on her cocktail dress for the ceremony in London.

"It’s a nice opportunity to get out into the real world, away from the slightly closeted world of bookbinding."

The Booker Prize 2024 shortlist

• Held, Anne Michaels

• Creation Lake, Rachel Kushner

• Orbital, Samantha Harvey

• James, Percival Everett

• The Safekeep, Yael van der Wouden

• Stone Yard Devotional, Charlotte Wood