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Janet Frame

Janet Frame, New Zealand's greatest author, died on January 28 at age 79. The author of twelve novels, four collections of short stories, three volumes of autobiography and one book of poetry was a candidate for the Nobel prize in literature last year. Born in Dunedin on August 28, 1924, Frame suffered various personal tragedies in her early life which led to a misdiagnosis of schizophrenia. The result was a stint in various mental hospitals which stretched across almost a decade of her youth. Her first book was published while she was still a patient, and Frame's entire body of work has been both praised and criticised for its insights into the world of the insane. Even after doctors eventually declared that Frame was not and had never been schizophrenic or otherwise disordered, she continued to battle critics who stubbornly propagated the myth that her genius was the result of mental illness. Frame's notorious and consistent tendency to shun the spotlight served only to encourage fans' and jourmalists' interest in her private life. She finally wrote her three-volume autobiography in a vain attempt to quell the obsession and set the record straight. Frame's books have been translated into more than a dozen languages, and she has won every possible award in New Zealand as well as many other awards, honorary degrees, medals, and prizes. Her autobiography was adapted into a Jane Campion film, An Angel at My Table. The Carpathians, her last novel, was released in 1988, after which she suffered a series of mild strokes and published nothing more aside from a few poems, although she continued to write almost every day.

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