Mary Renault (1905–1983)
Auteur van The King Must Die
Over de Auteur
Fotografie: Mary Renault. (Photo from Wikipedia)
Reeksen
Werken van Mary Renault
La maschera di Apollo 2 exemplaren
Walk the Night 1 exemplaar
Gerelateerde werken
The Collected Classical Stories and Classic Who Dunnits/boxed Set (2 volume set) (1996) — Medewerker — 24 exemplaren
Heroic Adventure Stories: From the Golden Age of Greece and Rome (1996) — Medewerker — 16 exemplaren
Tagged
Algemene kennis
- Gangbare naam
- Renault, Mary
- Officiële naam
- Challans, Eileen Mary
- Pseudoniemen en naamsvarianten
- Challans, Mary
- Geboortedatum
- 1905-09-04
- Overlijdensdatum
- 1983-12-13
- Graflocatie
- Cremated
- Geslacht
- female
- Nationaliteit
- UK
- Geboorteplaats
- London, England, UK
- Plaats van overlijden
- Cape Town, South Africa
- Oorzaak van overlijden
- cancer
- Woonplaatsen
- Durban, South Africa
- Opleiding
- University of Oxford (St. Hugh's College | English | BA | 1928)
University of Oxford (Radcliffe Infirmary) - Beroepen
- nurse
novelist
biographer
radio writer - Organisaties
- Black Sash Movement
- Prijzen en onderscheidingen
- MGM Prize (Return to Night, 1948)
- Agent
- Gordon Wise (Curtis Brown)
- Korte biografie
- Mary Renault received a degree in English from Oxford University in 1928. In 1933 she began training as a nurse at the Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford. During her training, she met Julie Mullard, a fellow nurse, with whom she established a lifelong romantic relationship.
Renault worked as a nurse while beginning a writing career, publishing her first novel, Purposes of Love, in 1939. Her historical novels, set in ancient Greece, were popular throughout the English-speaking world. In 1948, after her novel Return to Night won a prize worth $150,000, Renault and Mullard emigrated to South Africa, where they lived together for the rest of their lives. They were critical of apartheid and participated in the Black Sash movement in the 1950s.
Leden
Discussies
British Author Challenge February 2022: Mary Renault & Timothy Mo in 75 Books Challenge for 2022 (augustus 2022)
Mary Renault's Alexander Trilogy in Folio Society Devotees (december 2013)
Mary Renault in Book talk (juli 2013)
Besprekingen
La mascara de Apolo door Mary Renault
Acompañamos al actor ateniense Nicérato (o Niko) en un viaje por toda la antigua Grecia, en especial, el teatro griego. Pues se nos muestra como desde pequeño Niko ya participaba en obras teatrales junto con su padre, lo que inició su pasión por este. Una novela histórica que merece la pena leer, muy emotiva y la cual nos muestra todos los aspectos de dicha civilización; desde costumbres hasta su elaborada política y filosofía junto con Platón y otros personajes históricos importantes.… (meer)
La historia de Alejandro Magno contada por Bagoas, su fiel criado.
Basada en una figura histórica, El muchacho persa cuenta los últimos años de vida de Alejandro Magno a través de los ojos del que fuera su amante, Bagoas.
Hijo de un noble ejecutado por traición, vendido como esclavo y castrado cuando era niño, pasó al servicio de Darío III Codomano y, tras el asesinato de este, fue regalado al joven macedonio. Su relación sostendrá a Alejandro mientras este tiene que hacer frente a varios complots de asesinato, a las demandas de dos esposas, a los motines periódicos de su ejército y a su formidable carácter. Bagoas será también testigo de los profundos lazos de amistad y de compromiso que el emperador tiene con sus soldados.
Renault nos enseña cómo este muchacho persa podría haber comprendido y apoyado los fervientes planes de Alejandro mejor que cualquiera de sus generales.
Reseña:
«Las novelas históricas de Renault están entre las mejores jamás escritas.»
The Washington Post… (meer)
Basada en una figura histórica, El muchacho persa cuenta los últimos años de vida de Alejandro Magno a través de los ojos del que fuera su amante, Bagoas.
Hijo de un noble ejecutado por traición, vendido como esclavo y castrado cuando era niño, pasó al servicio de Darío III Codomano y, tras el asesinato de este, fue regalado al joven macedonio. Su relación sostendrá a Alejandro mientras este tiene que hacer frente a varios complots de asesinato, a las demandas de dos esposas, a los motines periódicos de su ejército y a su formidable carácter. Bagoas será también testigo de los profundos lazos de amistad y de compromiso que el emperador tiene con sus soldados.
Renault nos enseña cómo este muchacho persa podría haber comprendido y apoyado los fervientes planes de Alejandro mejor que cualquiera de sus generales.
Reseña:
«Las novelas históricas de Renault están entre las mejores jamás escritas.»
The Washington Post… (meer)
I love books that transport me. This sparkling, deed-driven, gestural world, conjured up by Mary Renault, is a world I find profoundly attractive. In part, this is because these stories are so deeply embedded in my unconsciousness that although alien, they are also familiar.
That said, the Minotaur of the The King Must Die is not quite the same as the legendary half-man, half-beast of my childhood. As a character in the weave of this tale it is better and more subtle for Mary Renault's art, I think. But it raises questions about veracity, if that can apply to mythology?
Some books bleed into others and I’ve come to The King Must Die immediately after Sylvia Martin’s Passionate Friends; wherein women writers hide behind assumed names. Mary Renault was the pen name of Eileen Mary Challans who pioneered novels exploring same-sex love and desire. She and her partner, Julie Mullard, emigrated from Britain, to live in a South African community of gay and lesbian expatriates. However, she was wary of identifying herself primarily by sexual orientation and was hostile towards the gay rights movement.
No doubt there are learned texts about the influence of Renault’s sexuality on her writing style, but if a writer’s sexuality has any relevance, then, in my opinion, here, it serves to make the clear air that contributes to the unfamiliar atmosphere and the timelessness of these gripping stories where there are abundant forms of sexuality and sex. Some of the most moving scenes involve love making, but of course, there is much more.
There are as many powerful women as there are men in these stories. I say stories because while the overarching story is of Theseus’s journey from boyhood to kingship, there are many sub-stories several of which: Medea and Phaedra are not contained within the arc of the narrative.
Regardless of the currency of her Greek scholarship, I found Mary Renault’s invocation of the cosmology of the Attic world with its gods and heroes utterly absorbing. So much of the power of this book is in the detail. Nowhere more than where death occurs. Many kings die, as they must in this world where succession needs be god-sanctioned.
The relationships between men, women and gods is both utilitarian and dutiful. But it is humanity that shines through: Men are only men
That said, the Minotaur of the The King Must Die is not quite the same as the legendary half-man, half-beast of my childhood. As a character in the weave of this tale it is better and more subtle for Mary Renault's art, I think. But it raises questions about veracity, if that can apply to mythology?
Some books bleed into others and I’ve come to The King Must Die immediately after Sylvia Martin’s Passionate Friends; wherein women writers hide behind assumed names. Mary Renault was the pen name of Eileen Mary Challans who pioneered novels exploring same-sex love and desire. She and her partner, Julie Mullard, emigrated from Britain, to live in a South African community of gay and lesbian expatriates. However, she was wary of identifying herself primarily by sexual orientation and was hostile towards the gay rights movement.
No doubt there are learned texts about the influence of Renault’s sexuality on her writing style, but if a writer’s sexuality has any relevance, then, in my opinion, here, it serves to make the clear air that contributes to the unfamiliar atmosphere and the timelessness of these gripping stories where there are abundant forms of sexuality and sex. Some of the most moving scenes involve love making, but of course, there is much more.
There are as many powerful women as there are men in these stories. I say stories because while the overarching story is of Theseus’s journey from boyhood to kingship, there are many sub-stories several of which: Medea and Phaedra are not contained within the arc of the narrative.
Regardless of the currency of her Greek scholarship, I found Mary Renault’s invocation of the cosmology of the Attic world with its gods and heroes utterly absorbing. So much of the power of this book is in the detail. Nowhere more than where death occurs. Many kings die, as they must in this world where succession needs be god-sanctioned.
The relationships between men, women and gods is both utilitarian and dutiful. But it is humanity that shines through: Men are only men
But I was in no danger of over-eating. It killed ones hunger to see even great lords (some of whom I knew to hate him) fawning upon Asterion, changing their faces in time with his like soldiers drilling. While he cracked coarse jokes, his eyes missed nothing. I saw him watch guess out of hearing as if he could read their lips, and his stewards lingered like spies. p.251.… (meer)
Lijsten
THE WAR ROOM (5)
Five star books (1)
Overdue Podcast (1)
War Literature (1)
Fiction For Men (1)
Read This Next (1)
Booker Prize (1)
1970s (1)
SFFCat 2015 (1)
Ancient Crete (2)
1950s (2)
Female Author (2)
Nifty Fifties (2)
Asia (1)
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Statistieken
- Werken
- 22
- Ook door
- 5
- Leden
- 17,067
- Populariteit
- #1,302
- Waardering
- 3.9
- Besprekingen
- 300
- ISBNs
- 417
- Talen
- 17
- Favoriet
- 101
