Tonight on Sunday ` Eleanor Catton, but who is she really? So Ellie, is it? So Ellie, is it? Ellie's fine. Fame,... Ellie and Ella tucked up together in a New York hotel ` how did that happen? It was just after the Booker Prize, and Lorde was there hobnobbing with David Bowie and doing other exciting things. ...her critics... What things are being said? What things are being said? Everything you can imagine ` that I was sleeping with the Booker judges. ...and that book. Sound I really say that? Do you really want to know? And NZ's rock royalty. Why do I climb? Because I love climbing. Mayan Smith-Gobat at the top of her game. I feel super lucky to be where I am. Kia ora, I'm Miriama Kamo. She was just 14 when she got an idea for a book. It became a global smash and made its author the youngest Man Booker Prize winner ever. Now The Luminaries has been translated into 23 languages, and there are plans for a TV series. Tonight Eleanor Catton talks to Janet McIntyre about accolades, criticism, Lorde and why she left school so early. It still doesn't feel real ` that moment. That life-changing moment. And the winner of the 2013 Man Booker Prize for Fiction is The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton. CROWD CHEERS It's funny. The whole thing doesn't feel real, actually. I still, um, get a shock sometimes when I log on to my email in the morning from somebody who says, you know, blah blah blah re the Man Booker Prize. And I kind of, you know- It's` It's very strange. (CHUCKLES) It's real, all right. Eleanor Catton is mobbed in Hokitika, the setting of the book. Locals are queuing for a sample of the hand that wrote the book that won the biggest literary prize in the world. Life has changed for Eleanor Catton - not all of it in a good way. The thing about dealing with bad press is that you cannot complain about it without coming off badly and it's really difficult, sometimes, because people can treat you incredibly poorly. I still didn't know why I was wanting to do this, but that's kind of part of the creative` Because you're weird. Because you're weird. Well,... (CHUCKLES) Aside from the reason, I guess. Weird? Wonderful? Genius? Before hearing about her book, I wanted to get to know the Man Booker Prize winner Eleanor Catton ` ` Ellie, as she's known to everyone, except her father. He actually demanded that I set up a separate email account that has Eleanor in it, rather than Ellie. And now i have two email accounts, one for Dad's emails and the other for the rest of the world. So Ellie, is it? So Ellie, is it? Um, Ellie's fine, yeah. Cats or dogs? Cats or dogs? Um, I have two cats. I actually` I really like dogs, but cats are such a good writer's pet, you know, because they're quiet and they` they sleep a lot. Kindles or paperbacks? Kindles or paperbacks? Oh, I would say paperbacks, for sure. I like the way that books are furniture too much. We have many books at home and walking down our hallway or walking through the lounge is` is just, like, a reminder of all the books I've ever read. Introvert or extravert? Oh, this is interesting. I think that maybe` maybe I'm extraverted. I'm not sure, but maybe because I'm asking` because I'm not sure, maybe that means I'm introverted. Five stars or backpackers? Oh, backpackers, for sure. You've had a bit of luxury recently, haven't you? Yeah, I always feel a bit out of place in, um, um, five-star hotels. I stayed in a five-star hotel in New York recently, and people kept turning up every day to turn down the sheets, and I just didn't quite understand that. It was very strange. GENTLE MUSIC This is where she feels more comfortable ` in the wilds of the Southern Alps, where she spent countless childhood holidays trekking with her family. I think that one of the amazing things about the South Island is that so much of it can only be enjoyed through effort, you know, either on foot or on a bike. She was 14, on a tandem bike with her dad, from Christchurch to the West Coast and back, when the seed of what would become The Luminaries was planted. There was something about that trip. It was difficult, and I, um, kind of a young irritable teenager and didn't want to be on a bike trip with my dad. I thought it was deeply uncool. and, um, on that trip I kind of` I started dreaming of a gold rush story. But was it that? Or was it something she'd read ` a book much earlier in her life? When did you come across it first? Oh, I can't recall. I may` I was probably 6 or 7. I dunno. How many times did you read it? How many times did you read it? I would` I don't know. I would guess at least 10, yeah. I had a surprise for her. Have you got it? Oh my goodness. Oh, that is the cover. That is the book that I` That's the cover I knew and loved. That's the library edition. < (GASPS) I haven't seen that cover in so many years. I got it from the library. I got it from the library. Oh yes, this is so beautiful. The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by American writer Avi. It's dickens for children, I think. A lot of The Luminaries began with my love of this book. I think I've read it more than any book I've ever` I've ever read. This is such a courageous book. This is such a` It's a book about, you know, what's right and what's wrong, like the exploitation of people is wrong. Um, mutiny isn't mutiny if there's a reason for it. So I do feel like my` my moral life has been very shaped by books for children ` by reading books for children. With that deep sense of morality entrenched as a little girl, it's not surprising Eleanor would become a principled and stroppy teenager. Railing against her school ` Burnside High in Christchurch ` which boasts John Key and Hayley Westenra among its alumni. I thought there was a very strong class structure at the school, where actually the elite class of the school was supported in a way that everybody underneath them was` was not supported at all, and that really` it` it offended my values. I guess I` I didn't like it. The last straw for Eleanor was in the sixth form when she was dropped from a short list of head girl candidates. They interviewed everybody on the short list except me, and they said it was because I was dating this` this boy who was` who they didn't approve of and I thought that that was complete rubbish. It was ridiculous to hurt a 16-year-old girl's feelings by rejecting her from the interview process. And also, a completely ridiculous reason. Um, you know, I just thought that was, um, bad form, so I left. MID`TEMPO MUSIC But there's a vulnerable side. Up next ` Sometimes I'll read something on Twitter, and I'll just be in, you know, the darkest of moods for the rest of the day` for the rest of the week, sometimes. Did you know that there's a typo in the book? Did you know that there's a typo in the book? Find it for me, please. UPBEAT COUNTRY MUSIC Gold fever almost 150 years ago. Hokitika the busiest port in the country. There were so many people, weren't there? 44 ships out there at one time. Right, yeah, and, the` you know, so many shipwrecks, as well. At the point where The Luminaries begins, at that point there were over 30 visible shipwrecks. Sounds, um, very very terrifying to me. This very street ` Revell St ` at the heart of the book, The Luminaries, was all abuzz. There were between 80 and 100 ` even more than that ` hotels all along this street alone, which is quite incredible to think about. And the streets were littered with fallen women and oath-cursing men,... (CHUCKLES) apparently. These papers were so, so much the internet of their day. Newspapers from the 1800s. Eleanor spent months researching online copies, plucking out details. This is actually the first time I've seen this in the flesh, you know, as it were. I notice there's some Saxby's weather warnings. Oh yeah, yeah. That figures in the book. But did you make any sense of it? August 1st, 7th, 13th, 21st, 28th. I couldn't make sense of it, which is why the bit in the book on Saxby's weather warnings is that they're incomprehensible. is that they're incomprehensible. (CHUCKLES) I like this bit at the end. READS: If the day marked prove calm and still, distrust the day after and the second day after. That's very funny. The 832-page book was written over three years while Eleanor was studying in the States. Her UK publisher, Granta, receiving the book in instalments. she admits she was a bit slow at times ` she had to be pushed. Yeah, she had to be pushed. Then there were terrifying moments for an editor. You ask Ellie how she's getting on and she says she's watched a whole series of Deadwood and, of course, writers are allowed to take time out, but there were slightly nerve-racking moments. Editor Max Porter from Granta has read the book 23 times. Did you know there's a typo in the book? Did you know there's a typo in the book? Find it for me, please. Oh, I might be wrong. You can correct me. Um, so we've got... 'Prichard'. There's no T in 'Pritchard!' (WHISTLES) Page 155, all right, clocked it. So what next? So what next? Um, we` When we reprint, we'll change it. 155. 155. Sorry about that. You've ruined my evening. You've ruined my whole trip to NZ. Did you ever doubt yourself? Oh, I mean, the doubt is constant, and so all the way through the book, I was under, you know, a constant, um, cloud of doubt and insecurity, um, you know. I think that that's just the nature of` of` of writing. You're never sure that you're gonna be able to pull it off, and if you are sure, I think that that's a bit of a problem, actually. Along with praise has come criticism. I have to ask you about your comment about the` the really nasty critics are a certain type ` that's over 45, they're male and they're from NZ. I think that's how it went. Oh, oh yeah, that does narrow it down a bit, doesn't it? Um, I think that the fact of my age and my gender were conspired to mean that some people who read the novel were not prepared to take it seriously. They were reading it from the beginning wanting to not take it seriously. And I think that this is also actually bound up with the fact that the novel's very long, and there's this sense of, 'Who are you to take up my time?' Like, 'How dare you?' So you think that they are negative to the book because you are young and because it's such a long book and you are a woman? Yeah, I think that those three things are uncomfortable for certain unimaginative people because they` they think, 'What have I got to learn from this person?' It must hurt, does it, to hear this kind of level of vitriol in such a public way that can never go away? Yeah, well, yeah, it does hurt. It's funny. It doesn't ever get better either, you don't` you can't turn your ears off, you know, or you don't ` you don't really develop a thick skin, I don't think. I mean, I still get... It's strange. Sometimes I will read something on Twitter, and I'll just be in, you know, the darkest of moods for the rest of the day. For the rest of the week, sometimes. What things are being said? What things are being said? Oh, I mean, I` everything you can imagine ` that i was sleeping with the Booker judges. I don't know, anything. (CHUCKLES) Yeah. She shared a bed with Lorde in a New York hotel ` just for a photo ` and swapped stories about their simultaneous leap into the public eye. Ellie and Ella tucked up together in a New York hotel. How did that happen? It was just after the Booker Prize, and Lorde were there, um, hobnobbing with David Bowie and doing other exciting things. One of the things that happens to all sorts of celebrities like Lorde, I mean, she's in a completely different str` strata, you know, than I am, of course, but, um, reporters will do things like they will shout insults at her and just say the most awful things, and what they hope is that she will have an outraged expression and turn to the camera, or even, you know, hope against hope, will give them the finger or, um, cuss at them or something, and, obviously, then, that's their headline. It may be a while till we see her next book ` Eleanor and her partner, poet Steve Toussaint are expecting a year of book tours, speeches, ongoing attention. It's strange, sometimes, how curious people are about you as a person, because it seems like that's not always the right question to be asking or something. I'm getting really nervous, cos you're paraphrasing me on camera. I'm getting really nervous, cos you're paraphrasing me on camera. Oh, sorry. (CHUCKLES) But she's adamant the next book will be completely different and just as ambitious. Complacency must be a factor for people who are successful, isn't it? Yeah, and I think that it's` it's the most poisonous thing, I think, that you can have, as an artist. I think that a complacent artist is somebody who assumes that everything that they do is good or is worth reading, um, and you have to remember that everything that you do is not worth reading until you make it worth reading. You know, it's not worth caring about until you start caring about it, um, which is the opposite of complacency so your struggle will be not to be com` complacent. That's nice way of putting it, and I think that it's really important to keep that fear front and centre. She's remarkable, isn't she? Imagine that ` 28 and the youngest Man Booker Prize winner ever. All right, up next, another talented Kiwi woman taking on the world ` Mayan Smith-Gobat. I'm the most internationally known NZ climber. # Bring the action. # I'm living what I thought was the dream, especially in the climbing world. And it really is ` I feel super lucky to be where I am. Welcome back. Mayan Smith-Gobat was born to climb. She learned to tramp and camp, ski and climb in one of the most beautiful playgrounds in the world ` Aoraki ` Mt Cook. So perhaps it's not surprising, then, that 30 years, on Mayan is one of the world's best rock climbers. John Hudson with this story. UPBEAT MUSIC Imagine hanging onto a sheer rock face with just your finger and toes. For Mayan Smith-Gobat, it's the ultimate buzz. Why do I go climbing? Cos I love going climbing. (CHUCKLES) Mayan's at the office ` hundreds of metres up this sheer rock wall in America's Yosemite National Park. My big breakthrough was climbing the Salathe Wall, and that was something which put me on the map. It made Mayan rock royalty when just last year she climbed this massive granite monolith, known as El Capitan, in a record five and a half hours. That's when I started getting US recognition, and started believing that maybe I could get someone to actually pay me a wage for climbing. (CHUCKLES) Now, at 34, she's turned pro ` a walking, talking, climbing billboard for Adidas. I am living what I always thought was the dream ` what people consider the dream, especially in the climbing world. And it really is. I feel super lucky to be where I am. To get to the top in this game, you have to climb and climb and climb. If climbing is work now, what do you do to relax? Climb. (CHUCKLES) ATMOSPHERIC MUSIC I'm always pushing my limits and so you're always coming up challenges within yourself and having to deal with failures. There have been thousands of failures, but they've made Mayan leaner, stronger, more determined. The best climbers aren't necessarily the ones who have an amazing gift for it. They're more the ones who have the determination to just keep pushing. Pushing to go higher and faster. When you're racing against the clock, does it become more dangerous? It does, because you can't take the time to make it really safe. You're still never gonna hit the ground, but the falls have bigger consequences ` they could be worse. SENTIMENTAL MUSIC Mayan had a head start in climbing, growing up in Mt Cook National Park. She wasn't much more than a toddler when she insisted on carrying her own pack on alpine adventures with her friends. Her stoicism engrained by the people and the mountains she grew up with. Climbing tends to attract people who are slight misfits ` people who don't necessarily wanna follow the rules or do something that's pretty` basically prescribed to them. The Boulders, Castle Hill, Canterbury. Mysterious weather-carved limestone created more than 30 million years ago. If Mayan has a turangawaewae, this is it. Castle Hill is a place where I learnt to climb, and coming here feels like coming home. It's kind of like nature's sculpture park. It really is. It's stunning. The archways and the features here are just beautiful. The boulders aren't very high, but can be challenging. We've seen you climbing almost horizontally. How do you do that? It's problem solving. It's using a huge amount of strength and body tension, like, throughout your whole body. Climbing when you're horizontal is really a combination of holding holds with your hands and pressing with your feet and keeping stability through your body so that your body doesn't sag away from the rock and pull you off. One, two, three, shoot. Most rock climbers don't train by themselves, so today Mayan has brought Ben Rueck to keep her safe. He's her long-term climbing buddy. I've been climbing with Ben a lot for the last year and a half, two years now, and... it is something that helps ` having someone you know and intrinsically trust in every form to climb with. It helps a huge amount to push yourself. And how do you reckon she's got to where she is? And how do you reckon she's got to where she is? (SIGHS) Hard work and dedication. Just stubbornness. You have to, because you fail so much. You fail 99% of the time and then you get, like, that 1%, that makes it worth it. We've been training a lot. I mean, there's been massive, massive improvements in her power. She got waaaay stronger, way faster. MID`TEMPO MUSIC To make climbing your whole life, you either need a big trust account or, like Mayan,... become a real rock star. She's a pretty big deal in the climbing world. So Japan-based photographer Eddie Gianelloni is also here to shoot Mayan for the world's top adventure magazines. She's got a great look. She's very talented. Things come to her very naturally. She entered one competition ` her very first competition ` and she won. And then it was kind of like, you know, it just snowballed from there. As rock climbing has grown in popularity, Adidas has cashed in, choosing just a few, like Mayan, to become their brand ambassadors. She's currently sponsored by one of the biggest, uh, names in the` the outdoor industry. She's a global athlete, and to be at that level` to be on their global team, you have to be at the top of your game, and she really is. She really is at the top of her game. And to keep in peak fitness, she's nearly always training, no matter where she is. UPBEAT MUSIC It's a nomadic life. Mayan's happy to sleep in the great outdoors, even on a ledge. Mayan's among the best in the world and still getting better; still travelling anywhere on the planet ` anywhere there are rocks to be climbed. There's always new big rock faces in the world which haven't been climbed and that's something that I would like to pursue more in the future. There's amazing big faces in China, down in Patagonia, um, Africa. (CHUCKLES) Do you think about settling down? I have. I think about it nearly every day, probably. (CHUCKLES) Most of my trips are paid for these days, and I'm making enough to live comfortably, but I still don't have an apartment anywhere. I don't have my own home. But, yeah, I'd like to have a base. For now her base is in Colorado, sometimes Germany and occasionally NZ. Are you the best NZ climber? Are you the best NZ climber? I'm the most internationally known NZ climber, and probably the only one who's getting paid to climb. (CHUCKLES) And long may it last. > And long may it last. > (CHUCKLES) Yeah. Very cool. Now, you'll remember Bernie Bluett. At 87-year-old, she returned to England to finally marry her war time sweetheart, Bob Humphery. Well, sadly, just eight months into the marriage, Bernie passed away, but she told us, when they wed, 'Any time left for both of them was well worth having.' ...to kiss your bride. (CHUCKLES) How about a smacker? BOTH CHUCKLE SLOW MUSIC Bernie, what's your advice to people who wonder ` will they ever have a romance like this? To look for it, because it is there for everyone. You just have to find the right person. And there is a right person... for everyone. SOFT MUSIC So we remember beautiful Bernie tonight. Our condolences to Bob and to the family. That's our show for tonight.