Her father worked on the railways and her mother was a failed poet.
In 1973 she legally changed her surname to Clutha, after the river
south of Oamaru, New Zealand, where she grew up as child, but continued
to write under the name Janet Frame.
Her brother had epilepsy and became an alcoholic.
She was educated at Waitaki Girl's High School then did her teacher's
training at University of Otago.
She spent 7 years in a psychiatric institution where she underwent over
200 sessions of electro-convulsive therapy.
Was scheduled to have a lobotomy when her first volume of stories, The
Lagoon, was published in 1952 - days before her operation. A nurse on
staff successfuly challenged the operation despite Frame's own mother
having approved it.