Birnam Wood a Gripping Explosive Thriller

“It’s taken [New Zealander] Eleanor Catton 10 years to follow up on her Booker Prize winning novel of 2013, The Luminaries. Fortunately, her latest offering, Birnam Wood, begins with a bang, quite literally. A series of earthquakes in the Korowai Pass, a protected region [in the] South Island, triggers a landslide,” Shahidha Bari writes in a review of the book for the Financial Times.

“This is a deeply enjoyable, action-packed book, an accomplished new offering in the expanding literary sub-genre of ‘cli-fi’,” Bari writes. “It comes in variously dystopian or utopian forms, and it’s the mark of Catton’s exceptional storytelling that she won’t let us work out which side Birnam Wood will fall — until the very end.”

In another review, published by The Washington Post, Ron Charles writes:

Birnam Wood is a sleek contemporary thriller … It’s not so much a change of tack as a demonstration that Catton, 37, is a master at adapting literary forms to her own sly purposes.”

Original article by Shahidha Bari, Financial Times, February 16, 2023.


Tags: Birnam Wood  Eleanor Catton  Financial Times  Washington Post (The)  

Luminary Award Bestowed Upon Jane Campion

Luminary Award Bestowed Upon Jane Campion

New Zealander Jane Campion has been honoured with Next Generation Indie Film’s 2023 Luminary Award. The director accepted the award at the third annual gala, which took place at the end…