Janet Frame: ‘An Angel at My Table’ (1989)

After being mis-diagnosed with schizophrenia as a young woman, Janet Frame spent  several years in psychiatric institutions. She escaped undergoing a lobotomy when a new young doctor discovered that she had just won a New Zealand national literary prize. She then went on to become New Zealand’s most acclaimed writer. As she says more than once in her autobiography: ‘My writing saved me.’

Maria (via telephone) and Sandra and Andrew (in the Studio) discuss Janet Frame’s trilogic autobiography, concentrating mainly on the first part until the author was in her early 30s. She went on to write 12 novels, 5 collections of short stories, two volumes of poetry and a children’s book.

As a young child: „I remember a grey day when I stood by the gate and listened to the wind in the telegraph wires. I had my first conscious feeling of an outside sadness…the sound of the wind moaning in the wires.”

As a teenager: „My only place of rebellion was within, in an imagination that I was not even sure I possessed.”

Her psycho-analyst:  „You are suffering from a loneliness of the inner soul.”

Music played:

1. ‘Hoki Mai’ (a Maori song)

2. ‘The Shepherd on the Rock’ (Schubert)

3. Symphony no. 7, last movement (Beethoven)