Reclusive Frame tipped as leading Nobel candidate

By SCOTT MacLEOD

Janet Frame is tipped as a possible winner of the Nobel prize for literature today.

The reclusive New Zealand poet and novelist is reportedly one of five secret finalists for the prize, to be announced in Sweden.

If she wins, the 79-year-old Dunedin writer will receive 10 million Swedish Kronor ($2.17 million).

And - probably more importantly for her - it would bring a worldwide surge in the popularity of her novels.

Frame's works include Owls do Cry, Faces in the Water, Scented Gardens for the Blind, An Angel at My Table and The Carpathians.

Her early years were marked by intense shyness and a suicide attempt, which led to her being held in Seacliff Hospital.

Several critics yesterday said the front-runner was Syrian poet Ali Ahmad Said, better known as Adonis.

But Asa Bechman, the chief literary critic of Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter, named Frame as her top candidate.

Frame has an edge for the politically correct Nobel in that she is female, and the last woman to win was Wislawa Syzmborska in 1996.

But Adonis has a big advantage because only one other Arab has won the prize.

Asked yesterday what she would do if she won, Frame, whose father was a train driver, said, "I'll buy the railways".

Frame biographer Dr Michael King said the author had heard nothing from the Nobel organisers and learned she was a frontrunner only when a relative contacted her.

It would be "wonderful for her and wonderful for New Zealand" if she won.

King said Frame had been tipped to win the Nobel five years ago after a journalist saw her name at the top of the shortlist.

However, the shortlist was in alphabetical order, and "Frame was the closest to A".

Asked what made Frame special, King said: "Those 10 years in psychiatric care is a big part of her ability to penetrate people's psyche".

Australian author Patrick White, who won the Nobel in 1973, labelled Frame "the most considerable NZ novelist yet".

Other writers tipped for the Nobel include JM Coetzee, Margaret Atwood and Carlos Fuentes.