Wilson, J. M. (2014) Cultural wealth and diaspora despair: Janet Frame’s In the Memorial Room. Paper presented to: 15th Triennial Conference of the European Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies (EACLALS): Un-Common Wealths: Riches and Realities, University of Innsbruck, Austria, 2014-04-17.
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| Item Type: | Conference or Workshop Item (Paper) |
|---|---|
| Abstract: | Janet Frame came into uneasy collision with the ghost of Katherine Mansfield, the ‘godmother of New Zealand literature’, when she was awarded the Winn Manson Menton Fellowship in 1974. This, New Zealand’s only overseas literary fellowship, took her to Menton and the ‘Memorial Room’ of Villa Isola Bella in Menton, in comemmoration of Mansfield’s own stay there in 1920 and 1921. In In the Memorial Room, the novel written during this time and published posthumously, the writer in the public space of diaspora is undermined by competing demands and expectations. Frame’s protagonist is alienated, at odds with the local expatriate community, and disoriented, descending into a crisis of despair and creative impasse. This paper examines the novel’s narrative strategies of analysis, denial (of self and others) and repositioning, as the author figure suffers sensory deprivation (being blind, then deaf), writing becomes a burden, and language a hazard. The question of posthumous fame and the ‘anxiety of influence’, it suggests, are possible, but not unique, explanations for this complex response to the cultural wealth that Mansfield represents and which the Fellowship celebrated. |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | Janet Frame, In the Memorial Room, Winn-Manson, Mansfield Fellowship, Menton, literary icon, glimpse |
| Creators: | Wilson, Janet M |
| Faculties, Divisions and Institutes: |
Faculties > Faculty of Education & Humanities > English and Creative Writing Research Centres > Centre for Critical and Creative Writing |
| Date: | 17 April 2014 |
| Date Type: | Publication |
| Journal or Publication Title: | 15th Triennial Conference of the European Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies (EACLALS): Un-Common Wealths: Riches and Realities |
| Event Title: | 15th Triennial Conference of the European Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies (EACLALS): Un-Common Wealths: Riches and Realities |
| Event Dates: | 2014-04-17 |
| Event Location: | University of Innsbruck, Austria |
| Event Type: | Other |
| Language: | English |
| Status: | Published / Disseminated |
| Refereed: | No |
| Related URLs: | |
| URI: | http://nectar.northampton.ac.uk/id/eprint/7004 |
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