Catton's novel, over 800 pages long, was the longest work ever to win the prize [Reuters]
Born in Canada but brought up in New Zealand Eleanor Catton won the £50,000 Man Booker Prize for her novel The Luminaries at the age of 28. This brought her the recognition of becoming the youngest ever winner of the Man Booker Prize. She is the second writer from that country to win the prize. The first was Keri Hulme in 1985 with The Bone People - her first and only novel.
Her 832-page tale of the 19th-century goldfields is also the longest work, beating Hilary Mantel's 672-page Wolf Hall which won in 2009, to win in the prize's 45-year history. Picking up her prize, Catton admitted that The Luminaries had been "a publisher's nightmare".
The book, a Victorian mystery tale set during the New Zealand gold rush, is intricately structured according to astrological charts - with each section exactly half the length of its predecessor. When it was shortlisted last month, the judges described it as a "Kiwi Twin Peaks".
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