(Image source from: Baba dreams of hidden treasure)

Young New Zealander Eleanor Catton created history as she cinched 2013 Man Booker Prize for her second book, an English fiction titled "The Luminaries". With this, the 28-year-old author became the youngest winner in the awards 45-year-old long history.

“The Luminaries”, an 832-page tome about the 19th century New Zealand gold rush is apparently the longest novel in Booker's history to bag the coveted literary prize.

Judges eulogized the “astonishing maturity and poise” of her 832-page murder mystery, asserting that the length of a book “doesn’t matter as long as it’s good”. They added that the “dazzling, luminous, vast” novel allowed readers to get lost in a story that is “quite exceptional”.

Catton outdid contenders like Colm Tóibín, NoViolet Bulawayo, Jhumpa Lahiri, Ruth Ozeki and the favourite, Jim Crace to bag this year's Man Booker Prize.

AW: Suchorita Dutta Choudhury