Peaks of McLeod

New Zealand composer Jenny McLeod speaks to Eva Radich for Radio New Zealand Concert, about her journey through setting Janet Frame's poems to music for the song cycle Peaks of Cloud commissioned by tenor Keith Lewis:

Upbeat (Audio download 18.44) Thursday 4th March

This is a fascinating conversation touching on the ways in which talented artists can collaborate with other artists working in different fields. Jenny McLeod is frank and articulate about her interactions with Frame's poetry and her experiences in setting it for Keith Lewis's voice and Michael Houstoun's piano playing.

Jenny McLeod's love for Janet Frame's poetry (from the books The Goose Bath and The Pocket Mirror) really shines through this interview. After completing Peaks of Cloud, McLeod went on to compose another two song cycles based on poems by Janet Frame.

The world premiere of Peaks of Cloud takes place in Wellington on the evening of Sunday 7th March 2010 as part of the New Zealand International Arts Festival:

Peaks of Cloud

Keith Lewis (tenor)

Michael Houstoun (pianist)

Janet Frame in Virago Modern Classics

Janet Frame has 3 titles so far in Virago Modern Classics:

Faces in the Water - Introduced by Hilary Mantel

Living in the Maniototo - Introduced by Linda Grant

An Angel at My Table - Introduced by Jane Campion

And of course the posthumously published novel Towards Another Summer is also on the Virago fiction list as a new title.

Blogger Verity's Virago Venture has noted the arrival of the new edition of Janet Frame's autobiography to her home library.

The VMC Angel at My Table was first released two years ago (January 2008).

Today in the UK Virago Press has just released a B-Format paperback version of that earlier edition. The new edition also contains all three volumes of Janet Frame's bestselling autobiography, described by Michael Holroyd as "one of the great autobiographies written in the twentieth century". The new edition also contains a very personal introduction written by one of Janet Frame's biggest fans: film director Jane Campion, who memorably transformed Janet Frame's memoir into the highly acclaimed beautiful and poetic movie adaptation of the same name.

In line with the practices of the publishing industry, a new book is first published in hard covers (although that step is not as common these days as it used to be); then after the first flush of sales of the prestige and more expensive edition, it is released in a large format paperback, and then when that edition has been through several reprints, if sales are good enough the publisher releases a smaller and cheaper "mass market" paperback or "pocket" edition, in order to make the title available to a wider audience. Janet Frame's titles, most of which have been almost continually in print somewhere in the world since first publication, have been through many of these cycles!

Book collectors have their work cut out for them, trying to keep up with all the different versions of the one literary work. But the ordinary reader, and students, should I imagine be pleased to see an affordable and easily portable version of this classic autobiography on the market. This is the type of book you find at airport bookstores. (Friends of mine recently travelled through Hong Kong and mentioned seeing the row of Virago Janet Frames on the shelves at an airport bookstall.)

NB: The Virago titles are for sale in the UK and Canada, and in the Commonwealth except for Australia and New Zealand where Janet Frame is published by Random House.

New US paperback

Counterpoint Press published the hardback of Janet Frame's posthumous novel Towards Another Summer early last year, and it received a terrific review in the New York Times in May 2009.

This exquisite novel, written in London in 1963, continues to find appreciative and enthusiastic new readers, and it's a great pleasure to announce the first American paperback edition (pictured above), also from Counterpoint.

The Virago hardback edition published in 2008 received glowing reviews in the UK and after several reprints was quickly followed by the paperback edition, which has also been through several reprints. Virago are shortly to issue a mass market paperback for the UK and Canada.

The first edition of the novel was published in Australia in October 2007, followed by the New Zealand edition.

It's ironic that this novel - tossed off while Frame was suffering writer's block while writing the longer work The Adaptable Man - is increasingly being recognised as a small masterpiece. Frame had been under considerable pressure from her UK publisher at the time, to produce a 'bestseller'. The Adaptable Man emerged eventually as a perplexing parody of a conventional novel. As NZ academic Karl Stead commented, rather than toeing the party line and trying to make her work more "palatable" by dumbing it down, Frame "planted landmines everywhere in those bogus English fields". And as we now now, midway through that achievement, she produced this almost perfect piece of crystalline prose.

As Man Booker prize winner Hilary Mantel declared in the Guardian (July 2008), Towards Another Summer "is no literary curiosity, but a deeply rewarding and beautiful novel".

Janet gets a Brazilian

... and a Norwegian.

Copies of the latest two translations of Towards Another Summer have arrived on my desk this week.

RUMA A OUTRO VERAO ~ Editora Planeta, Brasil

MOT EN NY SOMER - Forlaget Oktober

To my knowledge this is the first Brazilian edition of a Janet Frame novel.

Inside the front cover of the Norwegian edition, some of the glittering reviews for Towards Another Summer are quoted:

Grace Cleave we love you

A love story for Valentine's Day - a pile of the different editions and translations so far, of Janet Frame's novel TOWARDS ANOTHER SUMMER, first published just over two years ago in Australia, then New Zealand, then in 2008 in the UK, and in 2009 in the USA. The first four of the translations have been published already. There's also a 'talking book', produced by Bolinda.

Janet Frame has brought her character Grace Cleave alive and Grace has resonated deeply with many readers. Does she have Asperger's Syndrome? Or is she just a sensitive artist? That argument will never be settled - but one thing is clear, Grace has become real to many readers, and she speaks to them with an authentic and lovable voice, and with a humorous light touch too, and with a knowing irony, of homesickness, of loneliness, and of longing. And of coming to know who you are and where you belong.

NZ poetry alive and kicking

More good news concerning a 2009 Janet Frame laureate: poet Geoff Cochrane will at the 2010 NZ International Arts Festival launch a brand new book of poems: The Worm in the Tequila (Victoria University Press 2010).

The launch of the Geoff Cochrane volume will take place along with another eagerly awaited event: the launch of Bill Manhire's new work The Victims of Lightning.

Highly acclaimed poet Bill Manhire was of course the co-editor of Janet Frame's best-selling posthumous volume The Goose Bath (2006) which went on to win the Montana Poetry Prize for 2007.

This marvellous party will take place on the 11th of March at 6 pm at the Adam Art Gallery.

There's a third book to be launched that evening, and believe it or not, there's a Janet Frame connection with the third poet too: Kate Camp, who was a special guest last August at the Oamaru launch of the Friends of the Janet Frame House, will on the 11th of March be launching her fourth poetry collection.

Alison Wong in French Translation

Here's the cover of the French translation of As the Earth Turns Silver, the debut novel by poet Alison Wong, who was the 2009 recipient of the Janet Frame award for Fiction.