New Zealander and youngest ever winner takes home prestigious literary award for 800 page epic

The youngest every winner of the prestigious Man Booker Prize admitted her achievement had not quite sunk in yet.

New Zealand's Eleanor Catton took home the UK's most distinguished literary prize for her 832 page novel, The Luminaries.

Speaking about how it felt to hear she had won, the 28-year-old told a press conference: "It was just a white wall, I don't really remember."

Ms Catton said she did not know what she would do with the £50,000 prize and was not sure if her family back home would know she had won as none of them has a television.

The Luminaries follows Walter Moody, who is drawn into a mystery when he attempts to make his fortune in New Zealand's goldfields in the mid-1800s.

Described as a "Kiwi Twin Peaks", it is Canada-born Catton's second novel, with her first - The Rehearsal - being longlisted for the Orange Prize in 2010.

Catton beat bookies' favourite, British author Jim Crace, who had said his offering Harvest would be his final novel.