One of New Zealand’s most distinguished and prolific writers, Maurice Gee, has died in Nelson. He was aged 93.

News of his death has been reported by Stuff.

Gee wrote more than 30 novels for adults and children, including Plumb, described by the Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature as one of the best novels ever written in New Zealand.

He won numerous awards, including the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in the UK, the 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 wrote more than 30 novels for adults and children. Photo / Mark Coote

At the 2012 Auckland Writers Festival – his first public appearance for 10 years – he was delighted as the festival’s first Honoured New Zealand Writer.

In discussion with publisher Geoff Walker, Gee said of his more elderly characters: “Old people have a kind of fullness that young people don’t have.” Not necessarily wisdom, but experience and an awareness of death.

“They haven’t stopped living, but can be living intensely at the same time.”