Eleanor Catton wins Booker!

News this morning that Eleanor Catton, a NEW ZEALANDER, has won the Booker Prize with her novel, The Luminaries. Both our Booker winners (Keri Hulme was the first, with The Bone people) are female, and both novels are set on the South Island's West Coast, a magical place if ever there was one. Ms Catton is not from Christchurch, but was educated here, so our lovely parish-pump newspaper headline read "Christchurch-educated woman wins Booker". Parochial, aren't we? At least it does get a mention on the front page, but I doubt will generate the endless media-fest that occurred when we (NZ) lost the America's Cup recently.