Written with unsparing precision and astounding immediacy, Faces in the Water takes the reader behind the walls of two hospitals--Cliffhaven and Treecroft--and into the hearts and minds of its confused and tormented patients. The experience of insanity and "the utter, the naked precariousness of existence" is conveyed with extraordinary insight and poetic brilliance. "Miss Frame, a New Zealander, is endowed with a poet's imagination, and her prose has beauty, precision, a surging momentum, and the quality of constant surprise.... [She] has, unquestionably, written an extremely fine book." ― The Atlantic "In freshness of language and vision Miss Frame is the most remarkable New Zealand writer since Katherine Mansfield and Frank Sargeson." ― The Times Literary Supplement Recipient of the prestigious Commonwealth Writers Prize in 1989, Janet Frame has long been admired for her startlingly original prose and formidable imagination. A native of New Zealand, she is the author of eleven novels, four collections of stories, a volume of poetry, a children's book, and her heartfelt and courageous autobiography, all published by George Braziller. Used Book in Good Condition