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 Canadianborn, 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
