Mary Renault

1905-1983

Writer

"Oh Mary Renault every time" said the excellent Professor. "Mary Renault -- perfect for historical accuracy, perfect for atmosphere."

That quote, one of the last words Renault read before she died from cancer, is from a conversation a friend quoted to her in a letter.

The once bookish, rather withdrawn Renault grew up to lead be a leader of the sexual revolution. She tackled issues of lesbian love in her writing when no one else dared. And she so eloquently wrote about love between men in ancient Greece that many assumed Mary Renault was the pen name of a male author. They were right that the person who wrote passionately about male lover was not born Mary Renault -- she was born Eileen Mary Challans -- but her convincing accounts of Greek lover were the result of her skill, not her sex.

She was the daughter of a doctor. She was born in London and went to Oxford with the idea of being a teacher, but she soon decided she would rather be a writer. To broaden her experiences, she trained as a nurse; then she published her first novel, Promise of Love.

While she served in World War II, she used her off-duty time to write. Renault produced Return to the Night and two other novels while serving in the military. In 1947, she won a $150,000 award and moved to South Africa, where she and her partner Julie Mullard spent their life. Renault never returned to her native England. She became a passionate proponent of Greek-style democracy and fought against apartheid in her adopted home country.

Renault was called Molly by her family, and her mother -- who said that women students were unfeminine -- thought Molly's studies at Oxford diminished her sex appeal. Renault revealed many years later how much this hurt her.

Without her family's approval, Renault positively shape lesbian and gay history. Surely we can do as much, whether our families accept us or not.