DHAKA: Eleanor Catton has become the youngest writer to win the Man Booker Prize, with the longest novel to triumph in the award.

Catton, 28, beat competition from Colm Tóibín, NoViolet Bulawayo, Jhumpa Lahiri, Ruth Ozeki and the favourite, Jim Crace, to be awarded the £50,000 prize by the Duchess of Cornwall at a ceremony in Guildhall in London.

She is the second winner from New Zealand, after Keri Hulme in 1985.

The author began The Luminaries, her second novel, aged 25, and has eclipsed the previous youngest recipient of the award, Ben Okri, who won aged 32 in 1991.

Judges praised the “astonishing maturity and poise” of her 832-page work, saying the length of a book “doesn’t matter as long as it’s good”. They added that the “dazzling, luminous, vast” novel allowed readers to get lost in a story that is “quite exceptional”.

It is further recognition for the genre of historical fiction, following Hilary Mantel’s two Booker victories for Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies. Catton’s work comfortably eclipses the 672-page Wolf Hall, winner in 2009, for length.

Catton joked her work had been a "publishers nightmare" for logistical reasons, saying she had been compelled to buy a new handbag just to fit it in.

Speaking after the result was announced, she said her publishers had been thrilled that the final manuscript was just short enough "not to collapse under its own weight in paperback".

Source: telegraph
BDST: 1241 HRS, OCT 16, 2013
SR/JCK