Eleanor Catton
Eleanor Catton
Eleanor Catton MNZMis a Canadian-born New Zealand author. Her second novel, The Luminaries, won the 2013 Man Booker Prize. In January 2015, she created a short-lived media storm in New Zealand when she made comments in an interview in India in which she was critical of "neo-liberal, profit-obsessed, very shallow, very money-hungry politicians who do not care about culture."...
NationalityNew Zealander
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth24 September 1985
I have written ever since I knew mechanically how to do it.
I am a New Zealander, but I don't want to swallow New Zealand identity in one gulp.
handful immersed novels
I had never read Victorian novels before going overseas. I read a handful of authors, but I had not immersed myself in the literature of the 19th century.
highlight printed type
I highlight everything I find interesting, and then type out everything I've highlighted, and then print out everything I've typed, and reread these printed notes as often as possible.
favourite time
I loved 'Middlemarch,' I think that's one of my favourite books of all time, actually.
I much prefer a plotted novel to a novel that is really conceptual.
good intervals notes possibilities
In improvising, you've got your scale; you've got the notes that are going to sound good with other notes, the intervals that are going to sound good. But you've also got all the chromatic possibilities, the possibilities of sounding dissident, of being unexpected.
believe quite strongly understand
I believe really strongly in imitation, actually: I think it's the first place you need to go to if you're going to be able to understand how something works. True mimicry is actually quite difficult.
age covers
I don't see that my age has anything to do with what is between the covers of my book, any more than the fact that I am right-handed. It's a fact of my biography, but it's uninteresting.
impulses quite range states
The nice thing about the zodiac as a system is it is quite comprehensive as a range of impulses and psychological states it can speak about.
It's very brave going from a position of authority to one where you are an apprentice.
books carried excited impact zealand
The books that really made an impact on me were not set in New Zealand. Some were New Zealand novels, but the New Zealandness of them was not what carried me or excited me.
assume change character creatures extreme limits push seems situation takes
It seems pretentious to assume that we are not creatures of action. I think often it takes a situation of extreme absurdity, extreme action, to push us to the limits of what our character is, and to change us as people.
countless ears funny reviews sort turn
I've had countless reviews sort that have made me cry. It's funny, it doesn't ever get better either; you can't turn your ears off.