Wellington-based fiction writer Barbara Anderson will be awarded an honorary doctorate inliterature from the University of Otago on Saturday.
Anderson burst on the New Zealand literary scene in 1989, at the age of 63, with a short story collection entitled I Think We Should go into The Jungle.
The collection was shortlisted for both the Goodman Fielder Wattie and the New Zealand Book awards.
Her novel GirlsHigh followed in 1990, and then Portrait of the Artist's Wife won the Wattie award in 1992.
University vice-chancellor David Skegg said the honorary doctorate recognised Anderson's intellectual and artistic achievements, and the high regard in which she was held.
Anderson graduated from the University of Otago with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1947. She worked as a medical technologist and as a science teacher in Hawke's Bay and Wellington, and raised her family.
Returning to university studies in her 50s, Barbara Anderson's love of writing drew her to Bill Manhire's creative writing course at Victoria University in 1983.
Several of her stories were subsequently published in Metro, Landfall, Sport and the NZ Listener.
Her 2008 autobiography, Getting There, was described by writer Kate de Goldi as "the best New Zealand autobiography since Janet Frame's".