Janet Frame
|
|
Janet Paterson Frame (August 28, 1924 - January 29, 2004) was a New Zealand writer.
Born in Dunedin and raised in Oamaru, she became one of the pre-eminent New Zealand writers, publishing twelve novels, four collections of stories, and a book of poetry.
| Contents |
Life overview
Frame's education included time at Oamaru North School and Waitaki Girls' High School, then from 1943 Dunedin Teachers College, with part-time study of English, French, and Psychology at the nearby University of Otago.
Later she spent much time in London and in North America.
In 1947, she was wrongly diagnosed with schizophrenia and admitted herself to Seacliff Mental Hospital. She spent seven years in various psychiatric hospitals, undergoing over two hundred shock treatments. She published her first book, a collection of short stories entitled The Lagoon and Other Stories, in 1951. She was close to having a lobotomy until the book won the Hubert Church Memorial Award.
From 1954 to 1955 she lived with Frank Sargeson who encouraged her writing. In 1956, Frame left New Zealand with the help of a State Literary Fund grant. For seven years she lived in Ibiza, Andorra, and England.
She served as the 1965 Burns Fellow at the University of Otago, and lived in the Horowhenua.
Family background proved important to her in her early published work Owls Do Cry, and forms the hinterland to her autobiographical trilogy: To the Is-land, An Angel at my Table, and The Envoy from Mirror City.
Frame won best book of the 1989 Commonwealth Writers Prize for her book The Carpathians.
On February 6, 1990 she was made an additional member of the Order of New Zealand.
In 1990, her book An Angel at my Table was made into a film of the same name by Jane Campion.
Several times she has been tipped to win the Nobel Prize in literature, most recently in 2003 when Asa Bechman, chief literary critic at the Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter, predicted that Frame would win.
She was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia during August 2003. She died of this disease in Dunedin Hospital on 29 January 2004.
Literary works
Novels (first publication)
- Owls Do Cry, Pegasus Press, Christchurch, 1957.
- Faces in the Water, Pegasus Press, Christchurch, 1961.
- The Edge of the Alphabet, Pegasus Press, Christchurch, 1962.
- Scented Gardens for the Blind, Pegasus Press, Christchurch, 1963.
- The Adaptable Man, Pegasus Press, Christchurch, 1963.
- A State of Siege, Brazillier, New York, 1966.
- The Rainbirds, WH Allen, London, 1968.(Published in the US as Yellow Flowers in the Antipodean Room in 1969.)
- Intensive Care, Brazillier, New York, 1970.
- Daughter Buffalo, Brazillier, New York, 1972.
- Living in the Maniototo, Brazillier, New York 1979.
- The Carpathians, Brazillier, New York 1988.
Stories
- "University Entrance" in New Zealand Listener, 22 March 1946.
- "Alison Hendry" in Landfall 2, June 1947. (reprinted in The Lagoon and Other Stories as "Jan Godfrey".)
- The Lagoon and Other Stories, Caxton Press, Christchurch, 1951 (1952).
- The Reservoir: Stories and Sketches, Brazillier, New York, 1963.
- Snowman Snowman: Fables and Fantasies, Brazillier, New York, 1963.
- The Reservoir and Other Stories, Pegasus Press, Christchurch, 1966.
- You Are Now Entering the Human Heart, Victoria University Press, Wellington, 1983.
Children's Stories
- Mona Minim and the Smell of the Sun, Brazillier, New York 1969.
Poetry
- The Pocket Mirror, Brazillier, New York 1967.
- "Three Poems by Janet Frame" in New Zealand Listener, 28 August-3 September 2004 Vol 195 No 3355. view online (http://www.listener.co.nz/default,2490.sm)
Autobiography
- To the Is-Land (Autobiography 1), Brazillier, New York, 1982.
- An Angel at My Table (Autobiography 2), Brazillier, New York, 1984.
- The Envoy From Mirror City (Autobiography 3), Hutchinson, Auckland, 1984.
- Janet Frame: An Autobiography (Autobiography 1-3), Century Hutchinson, Auckland, 1989.
Articles
- "A Letter to Frank Sargeson" in Landfall 25, March 1953, p.5.
- "Review of Terence Journet's Take My Tip" in Landfall 32, December 1954, pp. 309-310.
- "Review of A Fable by William Faulkner" in Parson's Packet, no. 36, October-December 1955, pp. 12-13.
- "Memory and a Pocketful of Words" in Times Literary Supplement, 4 June 1964, pp. 12-13.
- "This Desirable Property" in New Zealand Listener, 3 July 1964, pp. 12-13.
- "Beginnings" in Landfall 73, March 1965, pp. 40-47.
- "The Burns Fellowship" in Landfall 87, September 1968, pp. 241-242.
- "Charles Brasch 1909-1973: Tributes and Memories from His Friends" in Islands 5, Spring 1973, pp. 251-253.
- "Janet Frame on Tales from Grimm" in Education, Early Reading Series, 24, 9, 1975, p. 27.
- "Departures and Returns" in G. Amirthanayagan (ed.) Writers in East-West Encounter, Macmillan, London, 1982.
- "A last Letter to Frank Sargeson" in Islands 33, July 1984, pp. 17-22.
A new volume of poetry is slated to appear sometime in 2005 under the guidance of her neice Pamela Gordon and the Janet Frame Literary Trust in accordance with Janet Frame's wishes.
--Five17 21:49, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Trivia
- The original 1951 edition of The Lagoon and Other Stories, and a number of subsequent editions printed using movable type, of her story "Dossy" contain a completely mistaken, out of place line in the third to last paragraph.
- The original title of Owls Do Cry was Talk of Treasure. It was taken from the frontispiece quotation for the book (a quote from The Tempest) and changed by Albion Wright at Pegasus Press, who didn't like the original title.
- She wore a blue and gold (Otago "icon") scarf to the 2001 exhibition of her work in the Hocken Collections, and explained that she had bought it the night before at a supermarket because she felt she should have something new to wear at the Opening.
See also
- New_Zealand_literature
- Michael King Biographer
- Frank Sargeson Mentor
References
- University of Otago Magazine, February 2005.
- King, Michael Wrestling with the Angel: A Life of Janet Frame, Penguin Books (NZ), 2000.
- King, Michael An Inward Sun: The World of Janet Frame, Penguin Books (NZ), 2002.
External links
- Citizens Commission on Human Rights - Janet Frame : "An Angel at My Table" (http://www.cchr.org/art/eng/page36.htm)
- Daily Telegraph obituary (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/01/30/db3001.xml&sSheet=/portal/2004/01/30/ixportal.html)
- NZ Book Council Profile (http://www.bookcouncil.org.nz/writers/framej.html)
- Aotearoa New Zealand Sound Archive (scroll down to hear a reading of unpublished poem "Friends Far Away Die" (http://www.nzepc.auckland.ac.nz/sounds/soundnz.asp#F)da:Janet Frame