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Edna O'Brien

Biography

Edna O'Brien

Edna O’Brien has written more than 25 works of fiction, including THE LITTLE RED CHAIRS and THE LIGHT OF EVENING. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature, the Irish PEN Lifetime Achievement Award, the National Arts Club Medal of Honor, and the Ulysses Medal. Born and raised in the west of Ireland, she has lived in London for many years.

Edna O'Brien

Books by Edna O'Brien

by Edna O'Brien - Fiction

I was a girl once, but not anymore. So begins GIRL, Edna O’Brien’s harrowing portrayal of the young women abducted by Boko Haram. Set in the deep countryside of northeast Nigeria, this is a brutal story of incarceration, horror and hunger; a hair-raising escape into the manifold terrors of the forest; and a descent into the labyrinthine bureaucracy and hostility awaiting a victim who returns home with a child blighted by enemy blood.

by Edna O'Brien - Fiction, Short Stories

As John Banville writes in his introduction to THE LOVE OBJECT, Edna O'Brien "is, simply, one of the finest writers of our time.” The 31 stories collected in this volume provide, among other things, a cumulative portrait of Ireland, seen from within and without. Coming of age, the impact of class, and familial and romantic love are the prevalent motifs, along with the instinct toward escape and subsequent nostalgia for home. Some of the stories are linked, while others carry O'Brien's distinct sense of the comical.

by Edna O'Brien - Fiction

Vlad, a stranger from Eastern Europe masquerading as a healer, settles in a small Irish village where the locals fall under his spell. One woman, Fidelma McBride, becomes so enamored that she begs him for a child. All that world is shattered when Vlad is arrested, and his identity as a war criminal is revealed. A disgraced Fidelma flees to England and seeks work among the other migrants displaced by wars and persecution. But it is not until she confronts him --- her nemesis --- at the tribunal in The Hague that her physical and emotional journey reaches its breathtaking climax.

by Edna O'Brien - Nonfiction

When Edna O'Brien's first novel, THE COUNTRY GIRLS, was published in 1960, it so scandalized the O'Briens' local parish that the book was burned by its priest. O'Brien was undeterred and has since created a body of work that bears comparison with the best writing of the 20th century. COUNTRY GIRL brings us face-to-face with a life of high drama and contemplation.