Eleanor Catton’s second novel, The luminaries, won the 2013 Man Booker Prize. At 28, she was the youngest author ever to win the Man Booker, and at 832 pages her novel was the longest book to win. The luminaries is an intricately plotted novel set in Otago and the West Coast during the 1860s gold rush. It is a literary mystery underpinned by substantial historical, literary and astrological research. The chapters are based on the 12 signs of the zodiac and, in the way that the moon wanes, each is shorter than its predecessor. The mystery laid out in the early chapters is slowly revealed as the book moves through the signs. 

This is Catton after she was made a member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2014.