Janet Frame at her desk, Wanganui, 1983. Unidentified photographer, MS-3028/807/004. Hocken Collections, New Zealand Women’s Weekly image
The centenary of celebrated Dunedin author Janet Frame’s birth is being marked by a commemorative exhibition and a rather special recognition of the Otago alumna’s personal papers held at Hocken Collections.
Frame’s papers have been accepted into the UNESCO Memory of the World Aotearoa New Zealand Register, which seeks to recognise items of recorded heritage that have national significance.
The UNESCO announcement will officially take place at the opening of the Hocken and Special Collections exhibition on 28 August, celebrating what would have been Frame’s 100th birthday.
Head Curator Archives Anna Blackman
Hocken Head Curator Archives Anna Blackman says the University of Otago – Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka library put forward an application to have the papers included in the Register.
“The inscription of the Janet Frame papers on the Register recognises the significance of the collection for future researchers, writers, literary scholars and historians,” she says.
“To have the inscription happen in the year of Janet Frame centenary is very special and recognises the longstanding relationship between the Hocken Collections and Janet Frame, as the writer long intended her papers to come to the Hocken.
“Inclusion in the Register promotes awareness of the collection and brings its existence to a wider audience.”
The papers now join eight other notable registrations held in the Hocken’s collections, the largest number from any New Zealand research institution.
The Hocken’s collection of Frame’s personal items began in the 1970s, when she deposited some literary drafts and a sealed suitcase of papers for safekeeping.
Blackman explains that Frame intended for the Hocken to keep and care for her items, and she later sold the library the bulk of her personal papers in 1999, before her death in 2004.
Its archive now includes a wide range of items such as book manuscripts, travel planning and arrangements, grants and residencies, business records, correspondence with friends and family, diaries and notebooks, and papers relating to the film An Angel at My Table.
“The collection is very significant,” Blackman says.
“The papers have an intrinsic value as the only such collection of papers created, gathered kept and used by Janet Frame.
“The University is honoured that Janet decided to make the Hocken the permanent repository of her papers.”
Frame’s association with Otago began in the 1940s when she studied part-time at the University while training to become a primary school teacher.
She was Burns Fellow at Otago in 1965 and was awarded a University of Otago degree in 1978.
The centenary exhibition Janet Frame’s Bookshelf: A Writer’s Reading Life, will explore the importance of reading to Frame over the course of her writing life.
Very few books owned by Frame are with her papers at the Hocken, so the exhibition makes extensive and imaginative use of other types of material to highlight how writing and reading were inseparable for her.
The exhibition runs from 29 August until 28 February 2025.
Click here to see the UNESCO inscription for Janet Frame’s papers.
Curator’s insights: A weekly 30-minute tour of Janet Frame’s Bookshelf: A Writer’s Reading Life
Join Head Curator Kirstie Ross to hear about how the writing and reading were inseparable for one of Dunedin’s and New Zealand’s most esteemed literary figures.
- When: 12.10-12.40pm on Tuesdays, 10 September to 8 October.
- Where: de Beer Gallery, Special Collections, Level 1 Central Library.