Luminaries' Eleanor 'MY EXCITING CHAPTER AS A MUM'

Why motherhood changed how the celebrated Kiwi felt about writing

- Elisabeth Easther

Acclaimed author Eleanor Catton recalls how the parents of a childhood friend gave her the nickname “the girl who turns houses upside down”.

The 37-year-old explains, “Building huts in people’s lounges used to be my favourite thing to do. I’d upend the couches, and use chairs and rugs to play pretend games, because I loved making things up. I think I was also quite tyrannical!”

These days Eleanor’s nickname could well be changed to “the girl who turns literary worlds upside down” – because Canadian-born, Christchurch-raised Eleanor now wins awards for making things up. In 2013, aged just 28, she won The Booker Prize for her novel The Luminaries.

“One thing I’m glad I didn’t know about the Booker Prize when I went to the awards ceremony was there were lots of people in the room, including the journalists, who already knew who’d won. If I had known that, I might’ve looked for clues.”

Eleanor was also told she’d been sitting beneath a giant spotlight at the glittering London event and, as the winner was being announced, a camera rolled into position in front of her. “But I was blissfully unaware,” Eleanor says of the calm before the whirlwind that followed her win.

Ten years on, Eleanor’s memories of the night are still vivid and she recalls how all the shortlisted authors were advised to prepare a speech, just in case. “Only I put my speech in the very bottom of my handbag, in a really hard-to reach place,” recalls Eleanor. “I said to my husband if I didn’t win, he had to destroy it. So when they called my name, I leaned down and started rummaging through my handbag and people wondered why I’d disappeared.”