Janet Frame – författare

En av 1900-talets stora självbiografiska romaner

»Lysande och oförglömlig.« Betyg: 5 av 5 - Inger Littberger Caisou-Rousseau, BTJ

En ängel vid mitt bord är den bok som har kommit att definiera Janet Frames författarskap. Den ingick i en självbiografisk svit, där hon med romanförfattarens skicklighet och poetens känslighet byggde en säregen värld av sina minnen: livet som barn till fattiga järnvägsarbetare, tiden för studier och läsning och - inte minst - de många år då hon satt inspärrad på mentalsjukhus. Och slutligen: inträdet i författarnas spegelstad. »Förlust, död, jag såg allting filosofiskt: jag hade ju fortfarande mitt skrivande, eller hur, och om det blev nödvändigt kunde jag använda mig av min schizofreni för att överleva.« Glas, speglar, reflektioner, upplevelsen av att vara av­skild från omvärlden genom glasskivor eller sjukdomens brutna blick - den författare som växte fram ur denna bildvärld betraktas sedan länge som Nya Zeelands främsta genom alla tider. I översättning av Annika Preis.

JANET FRAME föddes 1924 i Dunedin på Nya Zeeland. Under sin livstid publicerade hon elva romaner, fyra novellsamlingar, en diktsamling och en barnbok - samt den självbiografiska trilogi som lade grunden till hennes berömmelse och filmatiserades av Jane Campion 1990. Hon avled i födelsestaden år 2004.

»En av de vackraste & mest rörande böcker jag läst. Ett mästerverk.« Jane Campion

»En av de stora självbiografierna från 1900-talet.« Sunday Times

''Owls Do Cry remains innovative and relevant'' GUARDIAN ''Janet Frame was a unique and troubled soul whose luminous words are the more precious'' HILARY MANTEL''Her dark, eloquent song captured my heart '' JANE CAMPIONOwls Do Cry is the story of the Withers family: Francie, soon to leave school to start work at the woollen mills; Toby, whose days are marred by the velvet cloak of epilepsy; Chicks, the baby of the family; and Daphne, whose rich, poetic imagination condemns her to a life in institutions.It is one of the classics of New Zealand literature and has remained in print continuously for fifty years. A fiftieth anniversary edition was published in 2007.Owls Do Cry is Janet Frame''s first novel. She describes her idea behind it in the second volume of her autobiography:''Pictures of great treasure in the midst of sadness and waste haunted me and I began to think, in fiction, of a childhood, home life, hospital life, using people known to me as a base for main characters, and inventing minor characters''Regarded by many as one of the best New Zealand novels published, Owls Do Cry forms a loose trilogy with her two subsequent novels, Faces in the Water and The Edge of the Alphabet.

''Janet Frame''s luminous words are the more precious because they were snatched from the jaws of the disaster of her early life. It is one of the classics of autobiography. She knew that a writer must search her soul in order to say anything that is essential'' HILARY MANTEL''Janet Frame is the greatest New Zealand writer. She is utterly herself. Any one of her books could be published today and it would be ground-breaking'' ELEANOR CATTONAfter being misdiagnosed with schizophrenia as a young woman, Janet Frame spent several years in psychiatric institutions. She escaped undergoing a lobotomy when it was discovered that she had just won a national literary prize. She then went on to become New Zealand''s most acclaimed writer. As she says more than once in this autobiography: ''My writing saved me.''This edition contains all three volumes of Frame''s autobiography: To the Is-Land, An Angel at My Table and An Envoy from Mirror City.''One of the most beautiful and moving books I have ever read . . . A masterpiece . . . Janet''s autobiography had an enormous effect on me. She struck a blow right to my heart'' JANE CAMPION, GUARDIAN ''One of the great autobiographies written in the twentieth century'' MICHAEL HOLROYD, SUNDAY TIMES''All my preoccupations as a writer - my notions of home, beauty, madness of sorts and longing - come from her'' MEG MASON

''All I had experienced, all the stories I had read or dreamed came to me the moment I, a stranger, turned the key in the lock of the unknown house.''In a sweltering basement in downtown Baltimore, Mavis Halleton, writer, ventriloquist and gossip, is struggling to write her novel when an unexpected invitation arrives. The Garretts, a couple Mavis has never heard of but who admire her work, are to spend time in Italy and offer the use of their airy home in the Berkeley hills.During her stay, an earthquake hits northern Italy and Mavis, to her surprise, inherits the house. But, surrounded by museum replicas and tasteful imitations, she finds reality itself is on shaky ground.In this highly inventive novel, reality, fiction and dreams are woven together as Janet Frame playfully explores the process of writing fiction.

''Frame achieved that supremely difficult task of finding a voice so natural'' JANE CAMPION, GUARDIAN''The idea of a new novel by Janet Frame is in itself a delight'' MAGGIE O''FARRELL ''She is a singular writer. No one is quite like her'' ELEANOR CATTON The Daylight and the Dust is the most comprehensive selection of Janet Frame''s stories ever published, taken from the four different collections released during her lifetime and featuring many of her best stories. Written over four decades, they come from her classic prize-winning collection The Lagoon and Other Stories, first published in 1952, right up to the volume You Are Now Entering the Human Heart, published in the 1980s. This new selection also includes five works that have not been collected before. Her themes range from childhood to old age to death and beyond. Within the pages of one book the reader is transported from small town New Zealand to inner-city London, and from realism to fantasy. Janet Frame''s versatility dazzles.

''A deeply rewarding and beautiful novel'' HILARY MANTEL, GUARDIAN '' Towards Another Summer is a joy to read'' MAGGIE O''FARRELL''Frame has been compared with Katherine Mansfield and Virginia Woolf'' TELEGRAPHLife in England seems transitory for Grace Cleave as the pull of her native New Zealand grows stronger. She begins to feel increasingly like a migratory bird. Grace longs to find her own place in the world, if only she can decide where that is. But first she must learn to feel comfortable in her own skin, feathers and all. Towards Another Summer is a meditation on the themes of exile and return, homesickness and not knowing where home really is. It is suffused with beauty and tenderness and shot through with self-deprecating humour and frailty.Written in 1963, Janet Frame considered this novel too personal to be published in her lifetime.''In this deeply personal novel of exile and loneliness, Janet Frame proves the master of nostalgia, beauty and loss. Frame is, and will remain, divine'' ALICE SEBOLD''Exceptional . . . comic, melancholy and piercingly observant'' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

''One of the most impressive accounts of madness to be found in literature'' ANITA BROOKNER''Lyrical, touching and deeply entertaining'' JOHN MORTIMER, OBSERVER''Any one of her books could be published today and it would be ground-breaking'' ELEANOR CATTON''I was now an established citizen with little hope of returning across the frontier; I was in the crazy world, separated now by more than locked doors and barred windows from the people who called themselves sane.''When Janet Frame''s doctor suggested that she write about her traumatic experiences in mental institutions in order to free herself from them, the result was Faces in the Water, a powerful and poignant novel.Istina Mavet descends through increasingly desolate wards, with the threat of leucotomy ever present. As she observes her fellow patients, long dismissed by hospital staff with humour and compassion, she reveals her original and questing mind. This riveting novel became an international classic, translated into nine languages, and has also been used as a medical school text.Books included in the VMC 40th anniversary series include: Frost in May by Antonia White; The Collected Stories of Grace Paley; Fire from Heaven by Mary Renault; The Magic Toyshop by Angela Carter; The Weather in the Streets by Rosamond Lehmann; Deep Water by Patricia Highsmith; The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West; Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston; Heartburn by Nora Ephron; The Dud Avocado by Elaine Dundy; Memento Mori by Muriel Spark; A View of the Harbour by Elizabeth Taylor; and Faces in the Water by Janet Frame