Janet Frame

Janet Paterson Frame (August 28, 1924 - January 29, 2004) was a New Zealand writer.

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.

Related Topics:
Oamaru North School - Waitaki Girls' High School - 1943 - Dunedin Teachers College - University of Otago

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Later she spent much time in London and in North America.

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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 leucotomy until the book won the Hubert Church Memorial Award.

Related Topics:
Schizophrenia - Seacliff Mental Hospital - Shock treatment - Leucotomy - Hubert Church Memorial Award

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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.

Related Topics:
1954 - 1955 - Frank Sargeson - Ibiza - Andorra - England

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She served as the 1965 Burns Fellow at the University of Otago, and lived in the Horowhenua.

Related Topics:
1965 - Burns Fellow - University of Otago - Horowhenua

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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.

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Frame won best book of the 1989 Commonwealth Writers Prize for her book The Carpathians.

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On February 6, 1990 she was made an additional member of the Order of New Zealand.

Related Topics:
February 6 - 1990 - Order of New Zealand

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In 1990, her book An Angel at my Table was made into a film of the same name by Jane Campion.

Related Topics:
1990 - Film - Jane Campion

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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.

Related Topics:
Nobel Prize in literature - Critic - Dagens Nyheter

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She was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia during August 2003. She died of this disease in Dunedin Hospital on 29 January 2004.

Related Topics:
Leukaemia - August 2003 - Dunedin Hospital - 29 January

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