Penguin NZ acquires Janet Frame titles

Penguin NZ has acquired the rights to publish the first non-fiction book by Janet Frame for 25 years, as well as two new works of fiction.

For the first time ever, all of Janet Frame’s published short non-fiction will be brought together in a new collected volume. Published essays, reviews and reports will feature alongside speeches and extracts from interviews. The work also includes published letters spanning 50 years of Frame’s life and passages from her personal correspondence.

Pamela Gordon of the Janet Frame Literary Trust says: “The whole effect is to provide a kind of manifesto of one writer's life.
“Our hope is that this collection of non-fiction writings and speeches and interviews will challenge the many inaccuracies about Janet Frame that are disseminated even by apparently reputable sources,” said Gordon.

Penguin will publish the non-fiction collection at the end of 2011, and has acquired the rights also to publish two new fiction titles.

The first fiction work will be a volume of previously uncollected short stories, as well as some unpublished stories. The second work is an adult fable written by Frame in Ibiza during the 1950s. It is the first publication of material written by Frame when she lived on Ibiza, where she had her first profound romantic encounter.

“We are absolutely delighted to be able to offer these three new works by arguably New Zealand’s best known writer. Very few Janet Frame works have been published since her death in 2004, and Penguin is honoured to be publishing these new works now.” said Penguin’s General Manager of Publishing, - Debra Millar