Eleanor Catton has become the youngest writer to ever win a Man Booker prize. The 28-year-old New Zealander's book The Luminaries - an 832-page murder mystery based on the gold rush in the 19th century is also the longest novel to ever win the coveted literary prize.
Catton who started writing the book when she was 25-years-old was given the £50,000 by the Duchess of Cornwall at London's Guildhall on 15th October. The judges picked Catton's audacious take on an old form, the Victorian "sensation novel". The youngest ever winner before Catton was Ben Okri who was 32 when his work The Famished Road won the Booker prize in 1991. The Luminaries is Catton's second novel after The Rehearsal, which was shortlisted for the 2009 Guardian first book award. Catton is just the second New Zealander to win the prize, the first being Keri Hulme with The Bone People in 1985.
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