One of New Zealand's most distinguished novelists Maurice Gee grew up in Henderson and his childhood near Henderson Creek has provided inspiration for both his adult and children's fiction. After university he taught for two years and spent several years doing casual work but always writing. A grant from the NZ Literary Fund enabled him to spend a year teaching and writing in England in 1961 and his first novels were published during the 1960s and 1970s. 1979 saw Maurice win the Goodman Fielder Wattie Book Award for Plumb and was also the year his first children's novel was published. Under the Mountain was also televised providing a rare opportunity for New Zealand children to see their own landscape in a children's drama.

Maurice has written nine books for children and young adults and has won a number of awards over the years but The Halfmen of O, published in 1982 and winner of the Children's Book of the Year in 1983, is probably his most popular children's book. This was one of the few children's books ever to feature on the weekly best-sellers list, which used to be compiled by Whitcoulls and G.H.Bennett and published in the monthly New Zealand Bookseller and Publisher. Fifteen years later the KiwiKids Top 100, compiled by Whitcoulls as the result of a national survey, showed it to be still one of the most popular New Zealand children's books. The Motherstone, the final book in the Halfmen of O trilogy, won the Esther Glen Medal in 1986 and The Fat Man was AIM Book of the Year in 1995. After several years living in Wellington, Maurice has recently returned to Nelson.

 

Maurice was the 2002 Storylines Margaret Mahy Medal winner.

Under the Mountain was made into a movie, released 2009, and directed by Jonathan King.

Selected Bibliography:
Under the mountain (Oxford University Press) 1979
The World around the corner illustrations by Gary Hebley (Oxford University Press) 1980
The Halfmen of O (Oxford University Press) 1982
The Priests of Ferris (Oxford University Press) 1984
The Motherstone (Oxford University Press) 1985
The Fire-raiser (Penguin) 1986
The Champion (Puffin) 1989
The Fat man (Viking) 1994
Orchard Street (Viking) 1998
Hostel girl (Puffin) 1999

Salt (Puffin) 2007
Gool (Puffin) 2008