Edna O'Brien
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| Born: | 15 December 1930 Tuamgraney, County Clare, Ireland |
|---|---|
| Occupation: | Novelist |
Edna O'Brien (born 15 December 1930) is an Irish novelist and short story writer whose works often revolve around the inner feelings of women, and their problems in relating to men.
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[edit] Life and career
Edna O'Brien was born in Tuamgraney, County Clare, Ireland in 1930, a place O'Brien would later describe as "fervid" and "enclosed." According to O'Brien, her mother was a strong, controlling woman who had emigrated temporarily to America, and worked for some time as a maid in Brooklyn, New York for a well-off Irish-American family before returning to Ireland to raise a family.
O'Brien originally practiced as a chemist, but published her first book, The Country Girls, in 1960. The Country Girls was the first part of a trilogy of novels (later collected as The Country Girls Trilogy) which also included The Lonely Girl (1962) and Girls in Their Married Bliss (1964). Shortly after their publication, these books were banned (and, occasionally, even burned in churchyards) in Ireland due to their frank portrayals of the sex lives of their characters.
Her 1970 novel A Pagan Place was about her childhood living in a repressive Irish town. Indeed, her parents were vehemently against all things related to literature -- her mother strongly disapproved of Edna's career as an author, which greatly troubled Edna. In 1981 she wrote a play, Virginia, which was about Virginia Woolf and was staged at the Public Theater in New York in spring 1985. Another notable work was a biography of James Joyce, released in 1999.
She has received numerous awards for her works, including a Kingsley Amis Award in 1962, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in 1990 for Lantern Slides.
She was married, against her parents' wishes, to the Jewish Czechoslovakian-born writer Ernest Gebler, with whom she had two sons; they ultimately divorced and Gebler died in 1998. Currently, O'Brien travels extensively but lives and works in London. In 2006 Edna O' Brien was appointed adjunct professor of English Literature in University College Dublin [1].
[edit] Selected bibliography
- The Country Girls Trilogy (1987), collected with new epilogue, ISBN 0-14-010984-6
- The Country Girls (1960), ISBN 0-14-001851-4
- Girl with Green Eyes (1962), first published as The Lonely Girl, ISBN 0-14-002108-6
- Girls in Their Married Bliss (1964), ISBN 0-14-002649-5
- August Is a Wicked Month (1965), ISBN 0-14-002720-3
- Casualties of Peace (1966), ISBN 0-14-002875-7
- The Love Object (1968), ISBN 0-14-003104-9
- A Pagan Place (1970), ISBN 0-297-00027-6
- Zee & Co. (1971), ISBN 0-297-00336-4
- Night (1972), ISBN 0-297-99541-3
- A Scandalous Woman and Other Stories (1974), ISBN 0-297-76735-6
- Mother Ireland (1976), ISBN 0-297-77110-8
- Johnny I Hardly Knew You (1977), ISBN 0-297-77284-8
- Mrs Reinhardt and Other Stories (1978), ISBN 0-297-77476-X
- Some Irish Loving (1979), translations, ISBN 0-297-77581-2
- Returning (1982), short stories, ISBN 0-297-78052-2
- A Fanatic Heart (1985), short stories, ISBN 0-297-78607-5
- The High Road (1988), ISBN 0-297-79493-0
- On the Bone (1989), poetry, ISBN 0-906887-38-0
- Lantern Slides (1990), short stories ISBN 0-297-84019-3
- Time and Tide (1992), ISBN 0-670-84552-3
- House of Splendid Isolation (1994), ISBN 0-297-81460-5
- Down by the River (1996), ISBN 0-297-81806-6
- James Joyce (1999), biography, ISBN 0-297-84243-9
- Wild Decembers (1999), ISBN 0-297-64576-5
- In the Forest (2002), ISBN 0-297-60732-4
- The Light of Evening (2006), ISBN 0-618-71867-2
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- IMDB - list of films and TV works based on her stories and novels.
- Books and Writers - biography and list of works.
- 1992 audio interview of Edna O'Brien by Don Swaim
