Acclaimed writer Janet Frame dies

Janet Frame published her first novel in 1957

World-acclaimed New Zealand writer Janet Frame, author of a three-part autobiography that was turned into the film Angel at My Table by Jane Campion, has died.

The novelist, who was 79, had been suffering from acute myeloid leukaemia.

Frame, whose first novel, Owls Do Cry, was published in 1957, was acclaimed as the most accomplished New Zealand writer since Katherine Mansfield.

She was tipped several times to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, most recently in 2003.

She was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1983 for services to literature, awarded an honorary doctorate of literature from Otago University in 1978, and one from Waikato University in 1992.

She received New Zealand's highest civil honour in 1990 when she was made a Member of the Order of New Zealand.

Frame penned 11 novels, five short story collections, a poetry collection and her three-volume autobiography.