"I wish you would all believe me."
In this week's NZ Woman's Weekly (July 24, 2017) there is a 2-page reprint of a 1985 interview with Janet Frame written by Tony Reid.
In the interview Frame strenuously challenges the myths about her supposed life of extreme poverty, isolation and friendlessness.
"I do enjoy happiness," she says. "I'm a great lover of fun and laughter. I wish you would all believe me. Please do!"
"A likeable, humorous lady with a great appetite for life."
"I am a human being." ~ Janet Frame
How sad that Janet Frame felt she had to prove she was human. She certainly was, and still is by some, treated as though she didn't have human rights or dignity. I guess she became depersonalised in that way because people used to do that to other people if they knew they had been psychiatric patients. Frame explored this theme in her brilliant science fiction novel Intensive Care, in which humans are classified as human or animal. She was writing from a position of experience of being treated as if her own agency was not worth respecting.
It's an interesting and revealing interview combined with a review of Janet Frame's autobiography and it's timely to see it again given that there are still those who make a career of Not Believing Janet Frame. These self-appointed *experts* want to silence Frame yet again. One of the methods of suppression of her humanity seems to be now to write real person fiction about a fake *Janet Frame*. To perform a literary lobotomy.
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