Mary Renault

Mary Renault was the pen name of Eileen Mary Challans, a British writer born in 1905 and best known for historical novels set in ancient Greece. She studied English at St Hugh's College, Oxford, graduating in 1928, then trained and worked as a nurse while writing her first books, which were contemporary romances. In 1948 she moved to Durban in South Africa with her partner Julie Mullard and later settled in Cape Town, where she lived until her death in 1983. Life there let her write openly about gay characters without the censorship and hostility she would have met in England. From the 1950s she devoted herself to historical fiction, which became her most successful work. Her books return often to love, sexuality and relationships, drew a large gay readership, were generally well received by critics and earned her numerous awards.