Birnam Wood Shortlisted For Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction

6 March 2024

Eleanor Catton's Birnam Wood has been shortlisted for the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction at the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. This is an annual award of $60,000 for the best contemporary adult fiction novel from a New Zealand author. Further information about the title is below. 

Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton
Published in Large Print in July 2023.
Five years ago, Mira Bunting founded a guerrilla gardening group: Birnam Wood. An undeclared, unregulated, sometimes-criminal, sometimes-philanthropic gathering of friends, they plant crops wherever no one will notice: on the sides of roads, in forgotten parks, and neglected backyards. For years, the collective has struggled to break even. Then Mira stumbles on an answer, a way to finally set the group up for the long term: a landslide has closed the Korowai Pass, cutting off the town of Thorndike. Natural disaster has created an opportunity, a sizeable farm seemingly abandoned. But Mira is not the only one interested in Thorndike. Billionaire Robert Lemoine has snatched it up to build his end-times bunker. Intrigued by Mira, Birnam Wood, and their entrepreneurial spirit, he suggests they work this land. But can they trust him? And, as their ideals and ideologies are tested, can they trust each other?