ENCOUNTER: Stead's dream | Auckland News | Local News in Auckland

New Zealand's leading man of letters has strong words about Auckland's local government, and softer ones for his latest writing. He shares them with Sophie Bond.

WHO: Karl Stead
WHAT: New Zealand author of note
WHERE: The family home in Parnell
WHY: He's still overachieving

Karl Stead's gaze is unwavering. Framed by a wall of books, he leans back comfortably and waits. I feel young and star-struck and I'm relieved to have written down my questions. The house is like an art gallery and I've an urge to turn and study the Hotere behind me. First, should I address him as Karl?

Yes. His full name is Christian Karlson but he's been Karl since childhood. CK Stead has always been his pen name.

"When I was young and aspired to be a poet, the three most famous poets were WH Auden, TS Elliot and WB Yeats, so that's part of the explanation."

Karl has been writing for more than 50 years and there's no sign of him slowing. In a couple of days he flies to Oxford, England, for the awards ceremony of the Sunday Times' short story competition. One of six finalists vying for the prize of 25,000 ($53,500), he seems genuinely astonished to have made the top six. [See update below]

He tells me he's by far the oldest in the running, but I feel I'm talking with someone much younger than 77.

His entry, he tells me, is an amusing, ironic piece. "It's very strange in a way. It's set in Croatia and all the characters are Croatian. I've visited a number of times. The experiences gave me a scene and, to me, scene is very important in a short story."

He seems uncomfortable at my awkward, "How do you feel about the nomination?"
question. "It feels great, of course," he shifts in his seat and smiles, "I felt I had done a good job."

There's silence, I risk a non-literary question, drawing on his politically charged novel on the subject of violent political upheaval in New Zealand: Smith's Dream, made into Sam Neill's first flick, Sleeping Dogs, in 1977. "What do you think about the changes happening in Auckland's governance?"

He tolerates the diversion. "I must say I haven't followed closely in the way a concerned citizen should, but I'm deeply suspicious of Steven Joyce and Rodney Hide and what they seem to be doing.

"It's always said outside of Auckland that Aucklanders can't agree on anything. The Auckland government had agreed there should be a fuel tax to meet public transport costs, and then Steven Joyce said, 'You're not going to have that'.

"I'm worried about the direction Auckland is being given and the degree of power being handed to Rodney Hide. I think it's a bad thing."

We've moved on to his upcoming memoir when a gust of wind knocks a lamp over with a crash. Everything is neat as a pin in the living room, and Karl leaps up to right it, bringing back an advance copy of CK Stead - South West of Eden, to lay on the table.

The memoir, which comes out in May, describes his early years through to his marriage at the age of 23. There is a photo of him aged nine on the front cover, another as a geeky-looking, tweed and tartan-clad student on the back. "I didn't want them to use that picture. Look at my outfit.

"I always said I would never write an autobiography because I thought it might look like signing off, like you've nothing left to write. What surprised me was I really enjoyed writing it."

He says he still writes every day in his studio, three steps from the back door. I'm curious to look inside and Karl obligingly leads the way to the wood-panelled room.

Laden bookshelves line one entire side of the room, a sepia-toned photo of his Swedish grandfather glares from the opposite wall. Next to it hangs a giant portrait by Marti Friedlander; it's a baby photo of his daughter Charlotte Grimshaw, also an author. A pinboard above the desk is covered in photos. There's Janet Frame beaming at a table of friends, Frank Sargeson with a black cat, Karl being awarded his CBE.

As my notebook and the photographer's camera are lowered, and we murmur about leaving, Karl brings out a plate of grapes, picked from his garden. They are bursting with flavour and I think it could be pleasant to stay a while, snack on grapes in the afternoon sun and fish for more stories from a rich life.

UPDATE: CK Stead has won the first Sunday Times short story award for Last Season's Man. The judges of the award included novelists AS Byatt, Hanif Kureishi and Nick Hornby.

Kureishi said the winning story was a "pleasure to read" and "a fine example of how a short story should be constructed and written".

"It is a dignified and apt choice for the first occasion of the prize," he added. Source: BBC News