Eleanor Catton who is just 28 years of age but who completed winning novel The Luminaries when she was 27 also has – at 832 pages – the longest novel to ever win the Booker. Catton took out the award, the second New Zealander ever to do so (the first was Keri Hulme in 1985), from a list of 151 novels from as far afield as Zimbabwe, Ireland and Canada.
Catton will take home a cash prize of £50,000, but it is the exposure and acclaim of the prize that will be more valuable for her long term career.
