The Man Booker Prize committee last night announced the winner of the Man Booker Prize 2013: Eleanor Catton for her 832 page book The Luminaries. The New Zealand native is also the youngest winner of the award at 28.
The book she wrote according to the website of the prize is “set in 1866 during the New Zealand gold rush, contains a group of 12 men gathered for a meeting in a hotel and a traveller who stumbles into their midst; the story involves a missing rich man, a dead hermit, a huge sum in gold, and a beaten-up whore. There are sex and seances, opium and lawsuits in the mystery too. The multiple voices take turns to tell their own stories and gradually what happened in the small town of Hokitika on New Zealand’s South Island is revealed.”
Eleanor was to be awarded the £50,000 prize by the Duchess of Cornwall at a ceremony in Guildhall in London.
The only African interest in this award was Noviolet Bulawayo for her book We need New Names who as mentioned in the header was a non winner.
The race is on for the Man Booker International 2015 awards. The beauty about this award if this video is to be believed that in the new year the people of the commonwealth will not be the only one eligible to win the prize but anyone who writes in the English language. The prize is trying become the biggest prize in English literature.
Leave a Reply