Booker winner Catton claims Governor General’s Award
The Luminaries ‘dazzles with masterful storytelling’
Less than a month after capturing the Man Booker Prize, arguably the most prestigious literary award in the English language, Eleanor Catton was named winner of the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction, Canada’s oldest such prize.
Catton was awarded the prize for her second novel, The Luminaries, set in 1860s New Zealand, which tells the story of a group of men investigating the mysterious death of a hermit and the fortune that is subsequently found in his cabin.
In their citation, the jury (writers Kyo Maclear, Beth Powning and Thomas Wharton) described the novel as an “exhilarating feat of literary design (that) dazzles with masterful storytelling,” and praised Catton’s “precise sensual prose.”
The 28-year-old Catton was born in London, Ont., and moved to New Zealand, where she still lives, when she was six.
‘There are no bounds to what you can be inspired by.’ ELEANOR CATTAN Author of The Luminaries
“This is such a great honour, for my citizenship to qualify me for a Canadian award,” said Catton after Wednesday morning’s ceremony, held at the Betty Oliphant Theatre in downtown Toronto.
“I could imagine people reading The Luminaries and thinking, ‘Well, this isn’t at all a Canadian book.’ And what I wanted to emphasize was that I don’t really think it’s a New Zealand book, either.
“There are no bounds to what you can be inspired by,” she said. “There’s no reason why a Canadian writer couldn’t be inspired by a Turkish writer. As long as you’ve got a library card, you’re set to go.”
The other finalists for the award were Kenneth Bonert for his debut novel, The Lion Seeker, about an ambitious young man growing up in 1930s Johannesburg; Colin McAdam for A Beautiful Truth, about a childless family that adopts a chimpanzee; Joseph Boyden for his historical novel, The Orenda, which explores the clash of cultures in 17thcentury Huronia; and Shyam Selvadurai for his novel The Hungry Ghosts, about a young man’s escape from, and eventual return to, Sri Lanka.
For a complete list of winners, log on to ggbooks.canadacouncil.ca
The other winners of the English-prizes include Katherena Vermette, who took home the award for poetry for her collection North End Love Songs; Ottawa-born Nicolas Billon, who took the prize for drama for Fault Lines: Greenland — Iceland — Faroe Islands; Sandra Djwa, who won the non-fiction prize for Journey with No Maps: A Life of P.K. Page; Teresa Toten, who worked in Ottawa for the federal government, won for children’s literature (text) for The Unlikely Hero of Room 13B; Matt James, who captured the prize for children’s literature (illustration) for his work on Northwest Passage; and Donald Winkler, who was honoured for his translation, from French to English, of Pierre Nepveu’s poetry collection Les verbes majeurs.
The winner of each prize receives $25,000, and the publishers of the winning titles each receive $3,000. They will be celebrated at a ceremony at Rideau Hall on Nov. 28.