An Angel At My Table

Janet Frames luminous words are the more precious because they were snatched from the jaws of the disaster of her early life. It is one of the classics of autobiography. She knew that a writer must search her soul in order to say anything that is essential HILARY MANTEL

Janet Frame is the greatest New Zealand writer. She is utterly herself. Any one of her books could be published today and it would be ground-breaking ELEANOR CATTON

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 Zealands most acclaimed writer. As she says more than once in this autobiography: My writing saved me.

This edition contains all three volumes of Frames autobiography: To the Is-Land, An Angel at My Table and An Envoy from Mirror City.

One of the most beautiful and moving books I have ever read . . . A masterpiece . . . Janets autobiography had an enormous effect on me. She struck a blow right to my heart JANE CAMPION, GUARDIAN

One of the great autobiographies written in the twentieth century MICHAEL HOLROYD, SUNDAY TIMES

All my preoccupations as a writer - my notions of home, beauty, madness of sorts and longing - come from her MEG MASON