Eleanor Catton

Eleanor Catton is a New Zealand novelist and screenwriter. Her novel The Luminaries won the 2013 Man Booker Prize.

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The Luminaries: Eleanor Catton’s 2013 novel follows a group of men in the gold-rush town of Hokitika, New Zealand. This prizewinning novel established Catton internationally and exemplifies her intricate design.
Canterbury University: A public research university in Christchurch, New Zealand, established in 1873. Catton studied English at Canterbury before beginning her postgraduate education abroad.
Peter Jackson: A New Zealand film director, producer, and screenwriter known for The Lord of the Rings films. Catton wrote for Jackson’s television series The Luminaries, adapted from her novel.
2013 Booker Prize: The 2013 award of the Booker Prize for Fiction to Eleanor Catton’s The Luminaries. The award made Catton the youngest Booker Prize winner at the time.
The Rehearsal: Eleanor Catton’s debut novel explores a school scandal through a drama teacher’s class and a student saxophone ensemble. Her debut introduces the layered narration and performance themes that recur in her fiction.
Iowa Writers' Workshop: A graduate creative-writing program at the University of Iowa in the United States. Catton earned a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing there.
Claire McCarthy: An Australian film and television director known for works including The Luminaries miniseries. McCarthy directed the television adaptation for which Catton wrote.
The Luminaries (TV series): A 2020 television miniseries based on Eleanor Catton’s novel and set in nineteenth-century New Zealand. Catton wrote this adaptation, which reshapes the novel’s story for television.
Victorian novel: A novel written during Queen Victoria’s reign or shaped by the literary conventions of that period. Catton adapts Victorian plotting and social panoramas in The Luminaries.
Booker Prize: An annual literary award for a novel written in English and published in the United Kingdom or Ireland. Winning it brought Catton’s work a much wider international readership.