‘Youngest in prize’s history’ wins The Man Booker Literature Prize 2013

Eleanor Catton

Yesterday night, the first Black African woman nominated for The Man Booker Prize 2013, Zimbabwean author, NoViolet Bulawayo was not so lucky as New Zealander, Eleanor Catton, 28, (The Luminaries) was declared the winner.

Catton, according to the organisers, is the youngest The Man Booker Prize winner in the award's's history, having completed the book when she was 27. She also has the record of “the longest ever Man Booker winning novel (832 pages).

Emerging the winner of U.K's top literature award, Catton beats five other contenders shortlisted for the coveted prize.  

Harvest by Jim Crace; The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri;  A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki; and The Testament of Mary by Colm Toibin who were shortlisted last month.

Formerly known as Booker Prize, the winner of the Man Booker Prize receives £50,000. Also, like all the shortlisted authors, the winner gets a cheque for £2,500 and a designer bound copy of their book. Fulfilling one of the objectives of the prize - to encourage the widest possible readership for the best in literary fiction - the winner and the shortlisted authors now enjoy a dramatic increase in book sales worldwide.

For Bulawayo, getting nominated was probably not enough. She is the author of the short story Hitting Budapest (2010), which won the 2011 Caine Prize for African Writing, and Snapshots (2009), shortlisted for the South Africa PEN Studzinsi Award. Her latest novel We Need New Names (2013) is longlisted for the 2013 Man Booker  Prize.