Janet Frame

Janet Frame

Frame in 1993
Frame in 1993
BornJanet Paterson Frame
(1924-08-28)28 August 1924
Dunedin, New Zealand
Died29 January 2004(2004-01-29) (aged 79)
Dunedin, New Zealand
OccupationNovelist, short story writer, essayist, poet
LanguageEnglish
GenreModernism, magic realism, postmodernism
Notable worksAn Angel at My Table
Website
janetframe.org.nz

Janet Paterson Frame ONZ CBE (28 August 1924 – 29 January 2004) was a New Zealand author. She is internationally renowned for her work, which includes novels, short stories, poetry, juvenile fiction, and an autobiography, and received numerous awards including being appointed to the Order of New Zealand,[1] New Zealand's highest civil honour.[2][3]

Frame's celebrity derived from her dramatic personal history as well as her literary career. Following years of psychiatric hospitalisation, Frame was scheduled for a lobotomy that was cancelled when, just days before the procedure, her debut publication of short stories was unexpectedly awarded a national literary prize.[4] Many of her novels and short stories explore her childhood and psychiatric hospitalisation from a fictional perspective, and her award-winning three-volume autobiography was adapted into the film An Angel at My Table (1990), directed by Jane Campion.[2][3]

  1. ^ The Order of New Zealand Archived 27 August 2008 at the Wayback Machine Honours List
  2. ^ a b "Frame, Janet". Read NZ Te Pou Muramura. Retrieved 1 December 2020.
  3. ^ a b Worthington, Kim (2006). "Frame, Janet". In Robinson, Roger; Wattie, Nelson (eds.). The Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acref/9780195583489.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-1917-3519-6. OCLC 865265749. Retrieved 21 November 2020.
  4. ^ Martin, Douglas (30 January 2004). "Janet Frame, 79, Writer Who Explored Madness". The New York Times. Retrieved 17 November 2007.