Janet Frame Libri

Amy e Bob Withers vivono in una baracca fatiscente nella piccola città neozelandese di Weimaru e, nella grave depressione economica degli anni Trenta, riescono a malapena a sfamare i loro quattro bambini. Francie, la maggiore, a dodici anni è costretta a lasciare la scuola con la prospettiva di un misero impiego nel locale lanificio. Teresa, detta Chicks, Pulcino, è la più piccola e trotterella sporca dietro i fratelli, in perenne ricerca di una caramella o di un gesto d’affetto. Toby, l’unico maschio, soffre di epilessia e attende spaventato quei momenti in cui Dio gli butta sulla testa «un mantello scuro», e lui lotta per liberarsi «agitando in aria le braccia e le gambe». Daphne, infine, la fragile e introversa Daphne, fa suo ogni pensiero, ogni palpito del cuore, ogni gioia e dolore dei suoi fratelli. Il luogo preferito dai piccoli Withers è la discarica dei rifiuti, il posto dove si cercano i tesori, dove Toby e Daphne trovano libri di fiabe mangiucchiati dai vermi e dove Francie può liberamente raccontare i suoi sogni di adolescente che si farà strada nel mondo, andrà a ballare con i ragazzi e i loro cuori batteranno insieme.

Librarian note: Alternative cover edition of ISBN 0586085866 This is the second volume in Janet Frame's autobiography, in which she tells of how she left the close-knit family home in Oamaru for teacher training college in Dunedin. Her college years were a time of intense loneliness that culminated in an attempted suicide and commital to a mental institution. Labelled as a schizophrenic, Janet spent eight harrowing years in psychiatric hospitals until the publication of her prize-winning collection of stories won her a discharge.

New 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.

New Zealand's preeminent writer brings the skill of an extraordinary novelist and poet to these vivid and haunting recollections.

This is the cautionary tale of Toby Withers and Zoe Bryce, companions at the edge of the alphabet--that strange, incommunicable region of the mind walled by silence, noisy with dreams. Toby and Zoe meet on the ship to England. Irishman Pat Keenan, a London bus driver, passionately ordinary, forms the apex of the triangle.

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.'

'One of the most impressive accounts of madness to be found in literature ... A masterpiece' Anita BrooknerPublished as part of a beautifully designed series to mark the 40th anniversary of the Virago Modern Classics.

When a man who is believed dead revives in the mortuary and returns home, he is forced to re-examine his relationships with his family and others.

Our world is changing at a dizzying our physical environment, our communities and our cultures, how we communicate and the speed with which we adapt to new ways of experiencing and living in the world. Caught in the midst of decline and regeneration, what are we losing and what are we gaining? And how do we decide what's worth saving and what should be thrown away? In this issue, we travel to places on the cusp of staggering change, talk to people who have seen and done it all and rescue a few choice items from the recycling bin. From Ireland's Catholic priests - once exported around the world and now under threat even in their own country - to the hitherto obscure music saved from extinction via the vast exchange mart of the Internet, "Granta 105" captures moments of both disappearance and rebirth in all their complexity and strangeness.

'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) PRIZES: SELECTED SHORT STORIES 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 perfect sample of the many styles of Janet Frame's unique and powerful writing. 'Quite simply, she's a stunning writer' - Dominion Post (September 2007) 'Frame is, and will remain, divine.' - Alice Sebold