AUGUST 10 2019 LISTENER 65October 2013. With her second
novel, The Luminaries, Eleanor
Catton became at 28 the
youngest winner of the Man
Booker Prize and the second
New Zealand author to take
the award, after Keri Hulme
won with The Bone People in- Catton featured in an
astrologically themed cover
of the Listener inspired by her
book on the eve of her big
win. She wasn’t sure what to
think about the looming life-
changing event. “I don’t really
know what I feel. I’m really
looking to the prize being
announced, because I don’t
do very well with times of
uncertainty. I’m a chronic over-
thinker. I spend equal time
preparing myself for all pos-
sible eventualities. So I do feel
quite frazzled. I feel like I’m on
the verge of doing something
really awful in public, like
sweeping all the crockery off
the table.”
Catton is one of many New
Zealand authors to have made
the front page. Lloyd Jones
was there when his Mister
Pip won the Commonwealth
Writers’ Prize in 2006 (and was
shortlisted for the Booker the
following year); Witi Ihimaera
in 2004 with the publication
of Whanau II, his return to the
setting of his first novels; Janet
Frame appeared for CK Stead’s
eulogy, which is reprinted on
page 76 of this issue.
The fact that Katherine
Mansfield died some 16 years
before the Listener began
publishing hasn’t stopped her
being one of our most regular
cover stars through the
decades. She last appeared
in 2017 with the publication
of Redmer Yska’s A Strange
Beautiful Excitement: Kath-
erine Mansfield’s Wellington
1888-1903.
The Listener’s connection
with local literature and its
luminaries has been a defin-
ing feature of the magazine.
Among its books coverage,
it has occasionally stuck its
neck out to name New Zea-
land’s best novel ever. The
last time was 2007 and it was
Plumb by Maurice Gee, the
1978 first book in the Plumb
trilogy. “Gee’s greatest novel,
and one of the country’s
most powerful pieces of
literature,” wrote historian
Michael King in the Listener
early in 2004. “Plumb casts
its own penumbra of reality
that is in part a reflection of
a perfect match between
the author’s knowledge and
his informed imagination.
It is one of our truly mythic
stories that tells us far more
effectively than history alone
can what kind of people we
are and what kind of society
we inhabit.”When the Listener commissioned Nielsen in 2009 to find
out which New Zealander past or present was the greatest
exponent of Kiwi humour, Billy T James was the over-
whelming choice, despite ceasing to be a live act in 1991.
Billy T would say, as someone half Māori and half Scottish,
“One half of me wants to get pissed and the other doesn’t
want to pay for it.” His most memorable skit, though, was
a spoof of the Lands for Bags TV ad. The ads ended with
the cheesy line, “Where did I get the bag? Lands for Bags,
of course.” The James version went, “Where did I get the
bag? I stole it, of course. He he he.”Eleanor Catton wins
the Man Booker
Funny fulla: Billy T
A cow-cocky
in Te Awamutu was
fined $50 for not reporting
the theft of his neighbour’s
gate. He said, “I saw these
two fullas pinching the gate
but I never said anything
in case they took
offence.”