Mary Renault

From Philosopedia.org

Mary Renault (4 September 1905 - 13 December 1983)

Mary Challons, who later changed her name to Renault, was born at Forest Gate, Essex (now Greater London). She was the daughter of Clementine Newsome Baxter and physician Frank Challans).

Renault attended Clifton Girls School, Bristol, England, then received her B.A. at St. Hugh's College, Oxford University in 1928, following which she trained as a nurse at Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford University. Here she met Julie Mullard, who became her companion-for-life.

In 1948 she won an MGM prize worth $150,000 for her Return to Night, and according to Linda Proud in a 1999 article in Historical Novel Society the couple emigrated to South Africa where they found fellow gay expatriates who had "escaped the repressive attitudes towards homosexuality in Britain for the comparatively liberal atmosphere of Durban." In 1950, they participated in the Black Sash movement against apartheid.

In South Africa Renault was able to write for the first time about homosexual relationships. In The Charioteer (1953) and in The Last of the Wine (1956), she wrote about some of Socrates's Athenian students who fought against Sparta, finding this led to a wide gay readership. Ironically, her homosexual themes that treated love between men did not take up love between women.

On Demosthenes

In Fire From Heaven's historical notes, Renault differed in her estimation of Demosthenes's character. Although generally known as a statesman and orator, she claimed he was corrupt (taking substantial bribes from the Persian Empire; cowardly (dropping his weapons and armor and fleeing during the Battle of Chaeronea; and cruel (not showing compassion for anyone, even his own daughter.

Novels

Purposes of Love (1939)

Kind Are Her Answers (1940)

The Friendly Young Ladies (1945)

Return to Night (1947)

North Face (1948)

The Charioteer (1953)

The Last of the Wine (1956)

The King Must Die (1958)

The Bull from the Sea (1962)

Lion in the Gateway (1964)

The Mask of Apollo (1966)

Fire from Heaven (1970)

The Persian Boy (1972)

The Praise Singer (1978)

Funeral Games (1981)

Biography

The Nature of Alexander (1975)

Renaud died in Cape Town, South Africa.