Edna O'Brien

Ellen McWilliams (University of Exeter)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.4: Irish Writing and Culture, 400-present.
Vol. editors: Anne Markey (Dublin City University), Ian Campbell Ross (Trinity College Dublin), Eoghan Smith (Carlow College), Sinéad Sturgeon (Queen's University Belfast)

Dates

Born 15 Dec 1932
Died 24 Jul 2024
Activity 1960-2019

Places

Born in Ireland, Republic of (Eire)
Active in Ireland, Republic of (Eire)

Activities

Primary

Novelist
Story-writer

Resources

O'Brien's Works

Save to Bookshelf

A novelist, playwright, and author of several collections of short stories, Edna O'Brien is one of the most important Irish women writers of her generation. Prolific and provocative, she occupies a very significant place in the Irish feminist imagination. Throughout her impressive oeuvre, she returns to a number of key themes, showing a particular commitment to rendering the lives of Irish women, coming of age in Ireland in the 1950s and 60s, female sexuality and desire, exile and escape, and the trauma of Irish history. Her early work, the highly acclaimed and controversial

The Country Girls Trilogy

–

The Country Girls

(1960),

The Lonely Girls

(1962), and

Girls in their Married Bliss

(1964) – was banned in Ireland because of its sexual content. A concern with sexuality and with exile…

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

2676 words

Citation: McWilliams, Ellen. "Edna O'Brien". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 30 August 2007 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=3367, accessed 22 November 2024.]