Janet Frame is regarded as one of New Zealand's foremost writers. She wrote prize-winning novels and a three-volume autobiography, numerous short stories and outstanding poetry. An ideal entr e to her writing is through her first published book – The Lagoon and Other Stories – and the only collection of her poetry published during her lifetime: The Pocket Mirror. The Lagoon and Other Stories won the Hubert Church Award, saving her from an impending leucotomy and ensuring, as she recalled later in her autobiography, that she ‘was treated as a person of some worth, a human being’. Reissued here together to celebrate her life and work, both stories and poems show her playful explorations of language, vivid evocations of everyday life and consummate literary talents.

Author Biography

Janet Frame was born in Dunedin in 1924. She was the author of eleven novels, five collections of stories, a volume of poetry and a children's book. She was a Burns Scholar and a Sargeson Fellow and won the New Zealand Scholarship in Letters and the Hubert Church Award for Prose. She was made a CBE in 1983 for services to literature, awarded an honorary doctorate of literature from Otago University in 1978, and one from Waikato University in 1992. She received New Zealand's highest civil honour in 1990 when she was made a Member of the Order of New Zealand. Janet Frame died in January 2004.