Irish · b. 1930
Edna O'Brien was an acclaimed Irish writer, a fearless chronicler of women's inner lives whose frank early novels were once banned in Ireland and who is now regarded as one of its greatest authors.
Edna O’Brien caused a sensation with her debut, The Country Girls (1960), whose frank treatment of young women’s sexuality and desire led to it being banned and even burned in conservative mid-century Ireland.
Across a long and celebrated career she explored women’s lives, love, exile, and her native Ireland with honesty and lyrical power, in novels and stories including The Country Girls Trilogy, August Is a Wicked Month, and later works such as The Little Red Chairs and Girl, which confronted contemporary atrocity.
O’Brien is recognized as one of the most important Irish writers of the twentieth century, a pioneering and courageous voice for women’s experience.
by Edna O'Brien
Caithleen Brady and Baba Brennan grow up in rural Clare in the 1950s, are sent to a convent school after Caithleen's alcoholic father threatens her mother, then escape to Dublin and the freedoms it promises. O'Brien's debut was banned in Ireland on publication — it described female desire and Catholic repression with unprecedented frankness.
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