1. Janet Frame is internationally renowned for her work, which includes novels, short stories, poetry, juvenile fiction, and an autobiography, and received numerous awards including being appointed to the Order of New Zealand, New Zealand's highest civil honour.
Janet Frame was born Janet Paterson Frame in Dunedin in the south-east of New Zealand's South Island, the third of five children to parents of Scottish descent.
Janet Frame spent her early childhood years in various small towns in New Zealand's South Island provinces of Otago and Southland, including Outram and Wyndham, before the family eventually settled in the coastal town of Oamaru.
In 1943, Janet Frame began training as a teacher at the Dunedin College of Education, auditing courses in English, French and psychology at the adjacent University of Otago.
In September 1945, Janet Frame abandoned her teacher-training classroom at Dunedin's Arthur Street School during a visit from an inspector.
Janet Frame was then briefly admitted to the psychiatric ward of the local Dunedin hospital for observation.
Janet Frame was unwilling to return home to her family, where tensions between her father and brother frequently manifested in outbursts of anger and violence.
In 1951, while Janet Frame was still a patient at Seacliff, New Zealand's Caxton Press published her first book, a critically acclaimed collection of short stories titled The Lagoon and Other Stories.
Four years later, after her final discharge from Seacliff, Janet Frame met writer Frank Sargeson.
Janet Frame lived and worked at his home in Takapuna, an Auckland suburb, from April 1955 to July 1956, producing her first full-length novel, Owls Do Cry.
Janet Frame left New Zealand in late 1956, and the next seven years were most prolific in terms of publication.
Janet Frame lived and worked in Europe, primarily based in London, with brief sojourns to Ibiza and Andorra.
In May 1958 she legally changed her name to Nene Janet Frame Paterson Clutha, in part to make herself more difficult to locate and in part to recognise Maori leader Tamati Waka Nene, whom she admired, and the Clutha River, which was a source of creative inspiration.
Janet Frame still struggled with anxiety and depression, and in September 1958 admitted herself to the Maudsley in London.
Janet Frame returned to New Zealand in 1963, though not before spending a short period of time living in rural north Suffolk which gave her the inspiration for her 1965 novel The Adaptable Man.
Janet Frame accepted the Burns Fellowship at the University of Otago in 1965.
Janet Frame later lived in several parts of New Zealand's North Island, including Auckland, Taranaki, Wanganui, the Horowhenua, Palmerston North, Waiheke, Stratford, Browns Bay and Levin.
Partly as a result of these extended stays in the US, Janet Frame developed close relationships with several Americans.
Janet Frame's autobiographies sold better than any of her previous publications, and Campion's successful film adaptation of the texts introduced a new generation of readers to her work.
Janet Frame intended the autobiographies to "set the record straight" regarding her past and in particular her mental status.
On 6 February 1990, Janet Frame was the sixteenth appointee to the Order of New Zealand, the nation's highest civil honour.
Janet Frame held foreign membership of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and, in her native New Zealand, received two honorary doctorates as well as the status of cultural icon.
Janet Frame's writing became the focus of academic criticism from the late 1970s, with approaches ranging from Marxist and social realist, to feminist and poststructuralist.
In 2000, New Zealand historian Michael King published his authorised biography of Janet Frame, Wrestling with the Angel.
Some questioned the extent to which Janet Frame guided the hand of her biographer, while others argued that he had failed to come to terms with the complexity and subtlety of his subject.
Janet Frame died in Dunedin in January 2004, aged 79, from acute myeloid leukaemia, shortly after becoming one of the first recipients of the Arts Foundation of New Zealand Icon Awards, established to celebrate and acknowledge New Zealand artists who have achieved the highest standards of artistic expression.