Janet Frame (Writers and their Work)

An accessible close re-reading of Frame's novels and short stories from an autobiographical perspective. This study examines the whole of Janet Frame's output starting with the fiction (novels, short-stories and poems) before focusing on the two autobiographical novels, Owls do Cry and Faces in the Water, to end with the autobiographical trilogy, a sort of restorative prism inviting us to (re) read all her preceding works. It is the autobiography and its film version, An Angel at My Table (1990, directed by Jane Campion), that won her international fame. Frame's life is extraordinary, not only because she was spared a lobotomy by winning a prize for her collection of short stories, but also because writing from the 'rim of the farthest circle,' she provides food for thought for anyone interested in postcolonial and gender studies.