Janet Frame

#328 Do - Inflight reading! Celebrate a wonderful local author, Janet Frame. Janet was born in Dunedin in 1924 and grew up in Oamaru. She attended Otago University and trained as a teacher, then taught briefly at Arthur St School, before being misdiagnosed with schizophrenia. She spent many years in psychiatric hospitals, including the Seacliff Hospital. In 1952, she won the Hubert Church Memorial Award for her first published book, The Lagoon. This award persuaded Seacliff's superintendent to cancel a scheduled pre-frontal lobotomy that her mother had signed permission to conduct. Janet went on to travel extensively, publish over 20 books and receive many awards and honours. In 1974 she wrote this book, her 13th novel, in France on her second-hand typewriter. It was published posthumously in Melbourne in 2013. Perfect plane reading

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