Obituary - Renée

Renée Taylor (Ngāti Kahungunu), better known simply as Renée, has died. The New Zealand lesbian playwright, novelist, and short story writer passed away at home on 11 December 2023, aged 94. 

Renée, who didn’t start writing until her 50s, described herself as a "lesbian feminist with socialist working-class ideals". Her first play, Setting the Table, was written in 1981 and features working-class, lesbian, and Māori characters. In a 1982 interview, Renée told New Zealand feminist magazine Broadsheet, that she wanted to create a play with “strong, intelligent and funny female characters with political themes”. Her best-known work, Wednesday to Come, was first performed in 1984. It told the story of a family of working-class women during the Great Depression and featured a coffin on set, and scones being baked on stage. 

As well as plays, Renée wrote short stories and novels in a variety of genres, and an autobiography in 2017. She received the Prime Minister's Award for Literary Achievement in Fiction in 2018. As well as a writer, Renée was a teacher, a contributor to Broadsheet magazine, and a member of its collective.

She never stopped writing, even into old age. “Books - plays, poetry, short stories, novels, non-fiction - they feed us, they heal the broken places, they teach us new things, lead us back to old,” she said in a 2021 lecture.

Renée was a pioneering figure for New Zealand women in so many ways, as an out lesbian, and a lesbian mother, before there were any legal protections for such women. Her lasting legacy along with her written works, and her lesbian feminist politics, was her impact in the New Zealand theatre scene. As another lesbian feminist New Zealand playwright, Lorae Parry has said:

“Renée opened the stage door and strode in, announcing her arrival and standing centre stage. She opened the door with a bang, not with a whimper and many of us followed. It was time. Someone needed to do it. Renée had the guts.”

He toka noa te toka
He rākau noa te rākau
Kia tapiri rā anō ki te kōrero.

A stone is just a stone
A tree is just a tree
Until it is a story.

Moe mai rā Renée.