Maurice Gee

Maurice Gough Gee (22 August 1931 – 12 June 2025) was a New Zealand novelist. He was one of New Zealand's most distinguished and prolific authors, having written over thirty novels for adults and children, and having won numerous awards both in New Zealand and overseas, including multiple top prizes at the New Zealand Book Awards, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in the UK, the Katherine Mansfield Menton Fellowship, the Robert Burns Fellowship and a Prime Minister's Award for Literary Achievement. In 2003, he was recognised as one of New Zealand's greatest living artists across all disciplines by the Arts Foundation of New Zealand, which presented him with an Icon Award.

Gee's novel Plumb (1978) was described by the Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature to be one of the best novels ever written in New Zealand. He was also well-known for children's and young adult fiction such as Under the Mountain (1979). He won multiple top prizes at the New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults and in 2002 he was presented with the prestigious Margaret Mahy Award by the Children's Literature Foundation in recognition of his contributions to children's literature.

Early life and education

Gee was born in Whakatāne, and brought up in Henderson, a suburb of Auckland, a location that frequently features in his writing. His mother, Harriet Lyndahl Gee (née Chapple), was a socialist and an aspiring writer who had some of her work published, including a children's picture book called Mihi and the Last of the Moas (1943), and his father, Leonard Gee, was a carpenter. He was the middle child of their three sons. Gee was also the grandson of controversial Presbyterian-turned-Unitarian minister James Chapple, later to be the inspiration for Gee's character George Plumb in his Plumb trilogy (1978).

Gee attended Henderson Primary School and Avondale College, and completed BA and MA degrees at the University of Auckland, which subsequently recognised him with a Distinguished Alumni Award in 1998, and an honorary Doctorate of Literature in 2004. He also received an honorary Doctorate of Literature from Victoria University of Wellington in 1987.

Literary career

Early career: 1950 to 1977

Gee began writing at university, and had short stories published in New Zealand journals Landfall and Mate. After finishing his MA he taught in the secondary department of Paeroa District High School for about 18 months, starting in February 1955, but resigned in July 1956 to focus on his writing. In January 1960 and December 1961, he was awarded literary grants by the New Zealand Literary Fund.

His first published novel was The Big Season (1962), a novel about a rugby player who becomes interested in a burglar and the burglar's girlfriend. It had themes of violence and tension, and was described by The New Zealand Herald as "not always pleasant, but certainly forceful and sincere". Gee himself was a keen rugby player and the games in the novel were inspired by his own experiences. In 1964, Gee was the sixth recipient of the Robert Burns Fellowship at the University of Otago, one of New Zealand's most prestigious literary awards. During this fellowship he wrote his second novel, A Special Flower (1965). After the fellowship he trained as a librarian and in the 1960s and 1970s worked at the Alexander Turnbull Library, the Napier library and several libraries in Auckland.

His third novel, In My Father's Den, a mystery novel, was published in 1972. This novel was later adapted into the critically acclaimed film of the same name by director Brad McGann in 2004. Gee followed this novel with a collection of short stories, A Glorious Morning, Comrade (1974), which won the prize for fiction at the 1976 New Zealand Book Awards, and a further novel Games of Choice (1976).

Plumb and children's fiction: 1978 to 1991

Gee's novel Plumb, published in 1978, is his best-known work for adults, and is considered one of the best novels ever written in New Zealand. In 2018, fifty New Zealand literary experts voted it to be the best novel of the last fifty years. Gee described it as his "grandfather novel", with the character George Plumb closely based on his mother's father James Chapple, particularly his early life and his trials for heresy and seditious utterance. It won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in the UK, and the top prize for fiction at both the Goodman Fielder Wattie Book Awards and the New Zealand Book Awards in 1979. The novel and its two sequels, Meg (1981) and Sole Survivor (1983), explore the impacts of history, politics and religion on one family from the perspectives of different members. Meg won the top prize for fiction at the New Zealand Book Awards in 1982.

At this time Gee also published his first children's novel, Under the Mountain (1979), a science fiction story set in Auckland, New Zealand, about 11-year-old twins who discover aliens under volcanic Lake Pupuke. It has remained in print since it was published and is considered a New Zealand classic. It has been adapted into a 1981 television miniseries, a 2009 film and a stage show. In 2004, Under the Mountain was the recipient of the Gaelyn Gordon Award, awarded annually to a "much-loved" New Zealand children's book that did not win any awards at the time of its publication. It was followed by other children's books, including notably the science fiction trilogy beginning with The Halfmen of O (1982), which won the AIM Children's Book Awards Book of the Year Award in 1983, and Motherstone (1985), which was awarded the Esther Glen Award by LIANZA.