Eleanor Catton becomes youngest Booker prize winner

Judges praise 832 'extraordinary' pages of The Luminaries that New Zealander began writing when she was 25

Comment: novel questions and epic ambition
Interview: Eleanor Catton
Guardian review by Kirsty Gunn
Video: the case for The Luminaries

• Mark Brown, arts correspondent
• The Guardian, Tuesday 15 October 2013 

Eleanor Catton, centre, receives the Booker prize, with the Duchess of Cornwall, left, and the chair of the judges, Robert Macfarlane, right. Photograph: Anthony Devlin/AP

Eleanor Catton made Man Booker prize history twice on Tuesday night the youngest winner for, at 832 pages, the longest novel.

The New Zealander was 25 when she began writing The Luminaries, an epic 19th-century gold rush murder mystery. Now 28, she also becomes an "end of an era" winner: the last recipient of a Booker prize which, for 45 years, has only allowed Commonwealth and Irish writers – next year, the Americans are coming.
This year's chair of judges, the writer and critic Robert Macfarlane, admitted readers needed to make a "huge investment" in the doorstopping book; it is challenging with a slow start but the dividends were more than worth it.

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Comment: novel questions and epic ambition
Interview: Eleanor Catton
Guardian review by Kirsty Gunn
Video: the case for The Luminaries

Footnote:
I know I have posted this Guardian story before but it is such a good summary of the event and over here in London I am still buzzing with the excitement of that night at the Guildhall that is seems right  to share it again.