Edna O%60Brien Biography and List of Works

Irish writer whose work is noted for its sensuous style. Several of O'Brien's books have been banned in Ireland, but her work has gained a wide acclaim particularly in America, where she has been compared to Molly Bloom from Joyce's Ulysses.

Edna O'Brien was born in Twamgraney, County Clare. She was educated at the Convent of Mercy in Loughreu (1941-46). After settling in Dublin, O'Brien worked in a pharmacy and wrote small pieces for the Irish Press. She studied at the Pharmaceutical College of Dublin and was awarded a licence in 1950. Before becoming a writer O'Brien practiced pharmacy.

Married in 1951, O'Brien moved with her husband, the Czech/Irish writer Ernest Gébler, and two sons, to London. Since her divorce in 1964, she has remained in England. O'Brien published her first novel, COUNTY GIRL, in 1960. The story is partly based on the author's own experience of being brought up in a convent, and depicts the fortunes of two contrasting young girls, shy Kate and rebellious Baba. It was followed by THE LONELY GIRL (1962), and THE GIRLS IN THEIR MARRIED BLISS (1964). In A PAGAN PLACE (19780) O'Brien returned to the Ireland of her childhood. The novel tells the story of a country girl, who is seduced by a priest. JOHNNY I HARDLY KNEW YOU (1977) changes the roles of victim and oppressor. In the story a woman turns into an avenger, and murders her younger lover for the past betrayals of her other loves.

O'Brien has written plays, children's books, essays, screenplays, and non-fiction about Ireland. Her short stories have been published regularly in the New Yorker. MOTHER IRELAND (1976), O'Brien's tribute to her homeland, appeared in 1977. It includes seven autobiographical essays, in which O'Brien weaves her own personal history with the history, local customs, and ancient lore of Ireland. O'Brien's other non-fiction works include JAMES AND NORA, a study of James Joyce's marriage. She returned to the life of the great writer in her biography of James Joyce (1999), which paints a passionate and sensuous portrait of her fellow countryman.

In several of her works O'Brien has focused on the problems of parenthood, female isolation, and the bitterness of women who have experienced emotional failure in their relationships with men. TIME AND TIDE (1992) relates the tale of an innocent "country girl" Nell Steadman, her search for love, marriage and a vicious custody battle. O'Brien's angry novel DOWN BY THE RIVER (1997) is based on the true-life legal and moral battle that ensued when a 14-year-old girl, the purported victim of rape, sought an abortion in England. O'Brien picks up the scenario, and creates a chronicle of poverty and despair. The protagonist is Mary, almost 14 years old and pregnant by her widowed father. She tries to drown herself, but is rescued by a neighbour Betty, who takes her to England for an abortion. Before the operation can occur, Mary is forced to return to Ireland, and becomes the focal point of a ferocious nationwide debate concerning abortion.

O'Brien has received several literary awards, among them the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in 1990 for LANTERN SLIDES, a collection of short stories, set primarily in Ireland.

"When she wakened she said that she had been dreaming of the East. She and the little boy were walking in Gethsemane, the little boy eating melons, eating and eating the striped green skins and the soft lime-green pulp, then the seeds, devouring them so that his teeth turned into seeds and were no longer the little square sturdy white teeth with sharp points but yellow and flaky, crumbling in his mouth."
(from The High Road, 1988)

The Country Girls Trilogy: Country Girls (1960), The Lonely Girl (1962), Girls in Their Married Bliss (1964) - partly autobiographical. The novels trace the lives of two Irish women, Kate and Baba, from their school days in the Irish countryside to their disillusioned adulthood and failed marriages in London. The friends have a strict Roman Catholic upbringing, which comes into conflict with their sexuality and their dependence on men. Because of the graphic sexual content of the story, the whole trilogy, and six of the author's subsequent works, was banned in Ireland. - Much of O'Brien's writings are concerned with the position of women in society - their lack of fulfilment and the repressive nature of their upbringing. - In 1986, the three novels with an epilogue were published in one volume as The Country Girls Trilogy and Epilogue.

For further reading: Edna O'Brien by Bernice Schrank (1999); Encyclopaedia of World Literature in the 20th Century, ed. by Steven R. Serafin (1999, vol. 3) - Note: Edna O'Brien's and Ernerst Gébler's son Carlo Gébler has also gained fame as a writer. His first novel, The Eleventh Summer was published in 1985. In his early novels Gébler explored family difficulties. He has published non-fiction, children's books and written for film. In 1993 he made a six-part documentary for the BBC entitled Plain Tales from Northern Ireland. Works: THE ELEVENTH SUMMER (1985), AUGUST IN JULY (1986), WORK AND PLAY (1987), DRIVING THROUGH CUBA (1988), THE TV GENIE (1989), MALACHY AND HIS FAMILY (1990), THE WITCH THAT WASN'T (1991), THE CLASS CURTAIN (1991), LIFE OF A DRUM (1991), THE CURE (1994)

COUNTRY GIRLS, (1960)
THE LONELY GIRL, (1962)
GIRLS IN THEIR MARRIED BLISS, (1964)
AUGUST IS A WICKED MONTH, (1965)
CASUALTIES OF PIECE, (1966)
THE LOVE OBJECT, (1968)
A PAGAN PLACE, (1971)
ZEE & CO., (1971)
NIGHT, (1972)
A SCANDALOUS WOMAN AND OTHER STORIES, (1974)
MOTHER IRELAND, (1976)
JOHNNY I HARDLY KNEW YOU, (1977)
THE COLLECTED EDNA O'BRIEN, (1978)
MRS. REINHARD AND OTHER STORIES, (1978)
ed.: SOME IRIS LOVING, (1979)
VIRGINIA, (1981)
RETURNING, (1982)
A FANATIC HEART, (1984)
TALES FOR THE TELLING, (1986)
THE HIGH ROAD, (1988)
FAR FROM THE LAND, (1989)
ON THE BONE, (1989)
LANTERN SLIDES, (1990)
TIME AND TIDE, (1992)
HOUSE OF SPLENDID ISOLATION, (1994)
DOWN BY THE RIVER, (1997)
IRISH DREAMS: PHOTOGRAPHS, (1998)
JAMES JOYCE, (1999)