Eleanor Catton, an environmental tragicomedy set in New Zealand

Eleanor Catton, an environmental tragicomedy set in New Zealand

Eleanor Catton is a New Zealand writer, born in 1985 in Canada and raised near Christchurch, New Zealand. His first novel, La Répétition, appeared on numerous award lists and was awarded the Best Foreign Book Award in 2011. His second novel, Les Luminaires, published by Boucher-Chastel in 2015, won the Governor General's Award and the Booker Prize. award, making the author the youngest recipient of this prestigious international accolade.

Birnam Wood by Eleanor Caton © Catherine Frochon-Toussaint/RFI

In New Zealand, Mina Bunting is an activist who heads Birnam Wood, a green guerrilla group that seeks to farm unused land. When a billionaire withdraws his Thorndike property from sale after a landslide, Mina takes over the place at the same time that Robert Lemoine claims he wants to build a bunker on the land.

Great naivete, environmental activist, billionaire with excessive ambitions. What compromises, what concessions will they be able to make as their ideals are put to the test?

Translated from English (Canada) by Margaret Capell to Boucher-Chastel editions.

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