Eleanor Catton

Eleanor Catton’s second novel, The Luminaries, was the clear winner of 2013’s Man Booker Prize, a double coup given the book is more than 800 pages long and New Zealander Catton is only 28 years old.

The Luminaries has dazzled reviewers and literary judges alike with its energy, imagination and sheer originality. A Victorian style murder mystery set in gold rush era New Zealand, its twelve chapters are organised according to the star signs of its characters, and range from 300 to only two pages in length.

‘A true achievement,’ wrote the New York Times. ‘Catton has built a lively parody of a 19th-century novel, and in doing so created a novel for the 21st, something utterly new.’

Eleanor Catton will speak to Louise Swinn about writing an epic novel and what it’s like to win the world’s most famed literary prize.

(Photo: Robert Catto)

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