The youngest-ever Booker winner named

Keri Hulme won for The Bone People in 1985.  The Luminaries is a vast, intricate murder mystery set in 19th century New Zealand and organized into 12 sections named for the signs of the Zodiac. It has the sprawling plot of a Victorian novel but a 21st century sense of formal experimentation. In 2014, the […]

Keri Hulme won for The Bone People in 1985.  The Luminaries is a vast, intricate murder mystery set in 19th century New Zealand and organized into 12 sections named for the signs of the Zodiac. It has the sprawling plot of a Victorian novel but a 21st century sense of formal experimentation. In 2014, the prize will (controversially) be opened to Americans — as The Guardian, ominously, “The Americans are coming.” But Justine Jordan says  Catton is too talented to be overshadowed by contenders from across the Atlantic: “Catton’s talent is already shining too bright for that to be a problem for her.” Robert Macfarlane, the chairman of the judges, says of The Luminaries, “we read it three times and each time we dug into it and the yields were extraordinary, its dividends astronomical.”
Catton is the daughter of a philosopher and a librarian. The novel is a tool for thinking with, as well as feeling with. “It is in my view a much better vehicle for philosophy than syllogisms and logical constructs,” she told The Guardian of UK.
“What I like about fiction most is that it resists closure and exists, if the reader is willing to engage, as a possible encounter – an encounter that is like meeting a human being.”
The award-winning author of  The Rehearsal  returns with another extraordinary piece of fiction, full of narrative, linguistic and psychological depth. It is 1866 and Walter Moody has come to make his fortune upon the New Zealand goldfields. But it’s not long before Moody is drawn into a mystery featuring a complex network of fate and fortunes…