Owls Do Cry
Product details
- ISBN 9780349006673
- Weight: 172g
- Dimensions: 130 x 196mm
- Publication Date: 14 Jan 2016
- Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
- Language: English
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'Owls Do Cry remains innovative and relevant' GUARDIAN
'Janet Frame was a unique and troubled soul whose luminous words are the more precious' HILARY MANTEL
'Her dark, eloquent song captured my heart ' JANE CAMPION
Owls Do Cry is the story of the Withers family: Francie, soon to leave school to start work at the woollen mills; Toby, whose days are marred by the velvet cloak of epilepsy; Chicks, the baby of the family; and Daphne, whose rich, poetic imagination condemns her to a life in institutions.
It is one of the classics of New Zealand literature and has remained in print continuously for fifty years. A fiftieth anniversary edition was published in 2007.
Owls Do Cry is Janet Frame's first novel. She describes her idea behind it in the second volume of her autobiography:
'Pictures of great treasure in the midst of sadness and waste haunted me and I began to think, in fiction, of a childhood, home life, hospital life, using people known to me as a base for main characters, and inventing minor characters'
Regarded by many as one of the best New Zealand novels published, Owls Do Cry forms a loose trilogy with her two subsequent novels, Faces in the Water and The Edge of the Alphabet.
Janet Frame (1924-2004) is New Zealand's most famous writer. She was a novelist, poet, essayist and short-story writer. She sought the support and company of fellow writers and set out single-mindedly and courageously to achieve her goal of being a writer. She wrote her first novel, Owls Do Cry while staying with her mentor Frank Sargeson, and then left New Zealand, not to return for seven years.
Her autobiography inspired Jane Campion's acclaimed film, An Angel at My Table. She was an honorary foreign member of the American Academy of Arts and Literature and won the Commonwealth Literature Prize. In 1983 she was awarded the CBE.
