6 Nov 2021

Renée: 92-year-old playwright on how reading changed her life

From Saturday Morning, 10:35 am on 6 November 2021

Otaki-based playwright Renée has many feathers in her cap, having written numerous plays and nine fiction novels — the latest being her first venture into crime writing, The Wild Card, which she published in 2018 at age 90. Renée, who received the Prime Minister’s Award for Literary Achievement that same year, credits her mother Rose with her lifelong love affair with the written word.

Now aged 92, Renée is delivering the annual pānui for Read NZ at the National Library on Wednesday 10 November. Her talk, If you don’t get your head out of a book, my girl, you’ll end up on Queer Street, is about the way that reading changed her life, having been taught by her mother at a young age.

While the pānui event is at capacity, there will be a free ebook of the work available for download here afterwards.

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Photo: Claudia Latisnere