|
Showing 1 - 21 of
21 matches in All Departments
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.
The autobiography of New Zealand's most significant writerNew
Zealand's preeminent writer Janet Frame brings the skill of an
extraordinary novelist and poet to these vivid and haunting
recollections, gathered here for the first time in a single volume.
From a childhood and adolescence spent in a poor but intellectually
intense railway family, through life as a student, and years of
incarceration in mental hospitals, eventually followed by her entry
into the saving world of writers and the "Mirror City" that
sustains them, we are given not only a record of the events of a
life, but also "the transformation of ordinary facts and ideas into
a shining palace of mirrors." Frame's journey of self-discovery,
from New Zealand to London, to Paris and Barcelona, and then home
again, is a heartfelt and courageous account of a writer's
beginnings as well as one woman's personal struggle to survive.
This book contains selections from the long out-of-print collection
entitled Janet Frame: An Autobiography (George Brazillier, 1991),
which itself was originally published in three volumes: To the
Is-land, An Angel at My Table, and The Envoy from Mirror City.
|
Owls Do Cry (Paperback)
Janet Frame; Introduction by Margaret Drabble
1
|
R310
R252
Discovery Miles 2 520
Save R58 (19%)
|
Ships in 9 - 15 working days
|
Owls 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. 'Janet Frame's first full-length work of
fiction, Owls Do Cry, is an exhilarating and dazzling prelude to
her long and successful career. She was to write in several modes,
publishing poems, short stories, fables and volumes of
autobiography, as well as other novels of varied degrees of formal
complexity, but Owls Do Cry remains unique in her oeuvre. It has
the freshness and fierceness of a mingled cry of joy and pain. Its
evocation of childhood recalls Blake's Songs of Innocence and of
Experience, as well as the otherworldly Shakespearean lyric of her
title and epigraph, but her handling of her dark material is wholly
original' Margaret Drabble
First published in New Zealand in 1957, Owls Do Cry, was Janet
Frame's second book and the first of her thirteen novels. Now
approaching its 60th anniversary, it is securely a landmark in
Frame's catalog and indeed a landmark of modernist literature. The
novel spans twenty years in the Withers family, tracing Daphne's
coming of age into a post-war New Zealand too narrow to know what
to make of her. She is deemed mad, institutionalized, and made to
undergo a risky lobotomy. Margaret Drabble calls Owls Do Cry "a
song of survival"--it is Daphne's song of survival but also the
author's: Frame was herself misdiagnosed with schizophrenia and
scheduled for brain surgery. She was famously saved only when she
won New Zealand's premier fiction prize. Frame was among the first
major writers of the twentieth century to confront life in mental
institutions and Owls Do Cry is important for this perspective. But
it is equally valuable for its poetry, its incisive satire, and its
acute social observations. A sensitively rendered portrait of
childhood and adolescence and a testament to the power of
imagination, this early novel is a first-rate example of Frame's
powerful, lyric, and original prose.
This brand new collection of 28 short stories spans the length of
Frame's career and contains some of the best she wrote. None of
these stories have been published in a collection before, and more
than half are here published for the first time in "Between My
Father and the King."
The piece 'Gorse is Not People' caused Frame a setback in 1954,
when Charles Brasch rejected it for publication in Landfall and,
along with others for one reason or other, deliberately remained
unpublished during her lifetime. Previously published pieces have
appeared in "Harper's Bazaar," the "NZ Listener," the "New Zealand
School Journal, Landfall" and "The New Yorker" over the years, and
one otherwise unpublished piece, 'The Gravy Boat', was read aloud
by Frame for a radio broadcast in 1953.
In these stories readers will recognize familiar themes, scenes,
characters and locations from Frame's writing and life, and each
offers a fresh fictional transformation that will captivate and
absorb.
One of the great autobiographies of the twentieth century ...A
journey from luminous childhood, through the dark experiences of
supposed madness, to the renewal of her life through writing
fiction. It is a heroic story, and told with such engaging tone,
humorous perspective and imaginative power' Michael Holroyd, Sunday
Times After 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
|
Faces In The Water (Paperback)
Janet Frame; Introduction by Hilary Mantel
1
|
R309
R252
Discovery Miles 2 520
Save R57 (18%)
|
Ships in 9 - 15 working days
|
'Janet Frame's luminous words are the more precious because they
were snatched from the jaws of the disaster of her early life . . .
and yet to read her is no more difficult than breathing' Hilary
Mantel 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
This collection of stories - Janet Frame's first published book -
appeared in New Zealand in 1951, while she was confined in a mental
hospital. It won the Hubert Church Award, and a threatened brain
operation was averted. These stories bring into focus a crucial
turning point in her life.
Harry Gill, a moderately successful writer of historical fiction,
has been awarded the annual Watercress-Armstrong Fellowship--a
'living memorial' to the poet, Margaret Rose Hurndell. He arrives
in the small French village of Menton, where Hurndell once lived
and worked, to write. But the Memorial Room is not suitable -- it
has no electricity or water. Hurndell never wrote here, though it
is expected of Harry.
Janet Frame's previously unpublished novel draws on her own
experiences in Menton, France as a Katherine Mansfield Fellow. It
is a wonderful social satire, a send-up of the cult of the dead
author, and -- in the best tradition of Frame -- a fascinating
exploration of the complexity and the beauty of language.
Recipient of the prestigious Commonwealth Writers Prize in 1989,
Janet Frame has long been admired for her startlingly original
prose and formidable imagination. A native of New Zealand, she is
the author of eleven novels, four collections of stories, a volume
of poetry, a children's book, and her heartfelt and courageous
autobiography -- all published by George Braziller. This fall, we
celebrate our thirty-ninth year of publishing Frame's extraordinary
writing.
Extract From New Yorker, V38, January 12, 1963.
Extract From New Yorker, V38, January 12, 1963.
Recipient of the prestigious Commonwealth Writers Prize in 1989,
Janet Frame has long been admired for her startlingly original
prose and formidable imagination. A native of New Zealand, she is
the author of eleven novels, four collections of stories, a volume
of poetry, a children's book, and her heartfelt and courageous
autobiography -- all published by George Braziller. This fall, we
celebrate our thirty-ninth year of publishing Frame's extraordinary
writing.
From the author of "An Angel at My Table" comes an exquisitely
written story of exile and return, homesickness, and belonging.
Written in 1963, this is the first publication of a novel Frame
considered too personal to be published while she was alive.
I'm a short story addict, both reading and writing them, and I
always keep hoping for the perfect story.' (Janet Frame to Tim
Curnow, January 1984) 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. Janet Frame's versatility dazzles. 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. This
volume offers the most comprehensive collection of Janet Frame's
unique and powerful writing.
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.
'A deeply rewarding and beautiful novel' HILARY MANTEL 'The idea of
a new novel by Janet Frame is in itself a delight and Towards
Another Summer is a joy to read, with all the poise, inventiveness
and clarity of her other work' MAGGIE O'FARRELL Life 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. 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
|
You may like...
Loot
Nadine Gordimer
Paperback
(2)
R398
R330
Discovery Miles 3 300
|