I first met Janet Frame when I was a baby and she came to stay at our home in Northcote, on the North Shore of Auckland. She was my mother's sister. This was in 1955. She had already made a name for herself by winning a major New Zealand literary prize for her first book. She had also published poems and stories, and had read a story over the radio. I doubt whether I understood anything about fame then, and I'm only just beginning to register the extent to which being related to someone famous can affect one's life.
