The audacious and often disputed Irish writer, Edna O’Brien, born December 15, 1930, has died on July 28, 2024, in London at age 93. Well known as a novelist, playwright, screenwriter and short-story writer, her works spanned a wide range of genres, including over 20 novels, stage plays, biographies of famous figures like James Joyce and Lord Byron, screenplays, and a memoir.
Noteworthy is her initial trilogy comprising The Country Girls (1960), The Lonely Girl (later renamed as Girl with the Green Eyes) in 1962, and Girls in Their Married Bliss (1963), which despite being prohibited by the Irish censor, stirred up heightened interest among Irish readers. Even half a century later, Dublin chose to acknowledge this trilogy as part of their One City One Book event in 2019.
Her early works include, but are not limited to, August is a Wicked Month (1965), A Scandalous Woman (1974), and Johnny I Hardly Knew You (1977). Later works comprise House of Splendid Isolation (1994), Down by the River (1996), In the Forest (2002), The Light of the Evening (2006), The Little Red Chairs (2015) and Girl (2019). Also worthy of mention are her collections of short stories, notably Mrs Reinhardt and Other Stories (1978), A Fanatic Heart (1984) and Saints and Sinners (2011). Moreover, she adapted her novel, A Pagan Place (1972), for the stage, and wrote additional plays such as Our Father (1999) and Haunted (2009). In 2003, her portrayal of Euripides’ Iphigenia was performed on stage.
The industrious O’Brien also ventured into screenplay writing, with contributions to, I Was Happy Here (1965) and Zee and Co (1972). Her work, Girl with the Green Eyes, originally a novel published in 1964, was also transitioned into a screenplay. Showcasing her versatility and breadth of her talent, she even made a foray into the acting world, starring in the TV thriller, the Hard Way (1979) alongside Patrick McGoohan and Lee Van Cleef, and played herself in The Life and Loves of a She-Devil (1986), a TV series. Her autobiography, titled Country Girl, came out in 2012.
During her lifetimespan, O’Brien had a notorious, ambivalent relationship with her home country, Ireland. While locals showed her respect in person, scathing words were often shared about her in private. Nonetheless, in recent decades this perspective underwent a shift as younger generations of Irish authors began to see her as the respected matriarch of Irish literature, rather than the defiant redhead from County Clare. Acclaimed North American authors such as Philip Roth and Alice Munro also held her in high esteem.
O’Brien experienced consistent recognition for her work throughout her writing career. Her accolades included the Pen Nabokov Award for International Literature Achievement in 2018 and the David Cohen Literature Prize in 2019, an award generally equated with a local Nobel Prize for literature. One of the Cohen prize judges characterised her as a critical force in Ireland’s modernisation, while another acclaimed her unique ability to seamlessly oscillate her writing between politics, personal matters and poetic language.
Being proactive in tackling provocative topics through her writing often made O’Brien the target of critics. Despite encountering personal criticism for her avant-garde approach, she received numerous honours over her career. In 2018 she earned the Presidential Distinguished Service Award recognizing Irish overseas, and was appointed a Dame of the British Empire for her contribution to literature. Prior wins include the Kingsley Amis Award (1962), the Los Angeles Times Book Prize (1990), and the European Literature Prize (1995). O’Brien was also recognised with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2012 Irish Book Awards and in 2021 was titled as Commander of the French “Ordre des Arts et Lettres”.
Several universities have presented O’Brien with honorary doctorates, including Galway University, Queen’s University Belfast, and the University of Limerick. University College Dublin granted her its top honour, the Ulysses Medal, in 2006. She was invited to join Aosdána and elected as a Saoi, or wise one, in 2015.
Controversy hounded O’Brien even in 2019 when a New Yorker article by Ian Parker presented an unflattering profile of her. In response, two female scholars defending O’Brien responded with written pieces.
Drawing from reality, many of her novels were spawned from actual occurrences and individuals. Up for instance is her work, In The Forest (2002), published in 1994 and heavily influenced by a local tragedy from her birthplace, Tuamgraney in County Clare. The tragic event involved the horrifying murder of a mother, an infant boy, and a priest. The release of this novel, reinforced by a TV documentary by O’Brien, stirred up controversy as people slammed her for taking advantage of the situation for her own profit and unnecessarily causing distress to the affected families with her sensitive portrayal. The mother figure in the novel was designed as a reflection of O’Brien herself – fiery, red-headed, reputationally ‘disreputable’ and, in Yeats’ words, “too possessed of good looks for good fortune.”
She likened her fading youth to the young woman’s brutal end. Her literary piece, Down by the River, was moulded by the notorious Irish X case, involving a minor rape survivor’s fight for an abortion in England. While in House of Splendid Isolation, the chief character was modeled on Dominic McGlinchy, a past leader of the Irish National Liberation Army, whom she had met at Long Kesh prison whilst gathering data for her book.
One critic lauded The House of Splendid Isolation as a compelling instance of a “Troubles” novel by a female author. Throughout the nineties, O’Brien followed the Northern Ireland peace negotiations and even penned an open plea to then UK Prime Minister, Tony Blair, arguing for the inclusion of Gerry Adams in political discussions. Her narrative, Girl, illustrates the Boko Haram abduction of Nigerian schoolgirls, an event she had extensively journeyed to Nigeria to investigate while in her eighties.
O’Brien herself admitted, “The popular belief is that I’m a polished romantic author. However, the truth is I’m a ferocious writer with a brutal outlook. I venture into and write about forbidden territories.” She was once described by Laura Marlowe as ‘A theatrical entity in her own right, capable of displaying fierceness and vulnerability simultaneously, serious yet dramatic, exuding confidence yet modest, displaying fatigue and zeal at the same time’.
Edna O’Brien used her mother’s early existence as inspiration for her book, The Light of Evening (2006). The author imagines herself in the role of Eleanora, a dazzling and vibrant-haired author who unwisely ties the knot with an, overpowering, alien, and significantly older man—a character well-known to her followers. While she refrained from self-sorrow, she openly discussed her father’s alcoholism, her own turbulent matrimony, and the challenge of raising her children as a lone parent in London.
When O’Brien was 92, she penned the play, Joyce’s Women, which was performed at the Abbey Theatre during the Dublin Theatre Festival.
O’Brien, the youngest offspring of Michael O’Brien and Lena Cleary, was born in Tuamgraney, Co. Clare. She spent her childhood at Drewsboro, a large dwelling immersed within 242 hectares (600 acres). O’Brien concluded her pre-university schooling at the Convent of Mercy, Loughrea, Co. Galway, as a boarder. She later migrated to Dublin for a job in a pharmacy while simultaneously studying to qualify as a pharmacist in the evenings. Nonetheless, her ambition was always to become an author and in 1948, she started contributing articles to the Irish Press.
In 1952, O’Brien formed a connection with writer, Ernest Gébler, who was two decades her senior. Upon facing her family’s opposition to their liaison, the duo relocated to England and tied the knot in 1954. Later, they returned to Ireland to raise their two children, Karl (who was later named Carlo) and Sasha (who now goes by Marcus) in Lake Park House located near Lough Dan in County Wicklow. The family later stayed in Dublin for a while. By 1964, Gebler and O’Brien split and formalised their divorce by 1968.
O’Brien relocated to London, accompanied by her two children, establishing her Chelsea residence as a hub of attraction for both literary and celebrity circles. Among her wide array of guests were notable figures like Marlon Brando, Richard Burton, Jane Fonda, Paul McCarthy, VS Naipaul, Jackie Onassis, Vanessa Redgrave, JD Salinger, and more, leading to her nickname “The Playgirl of the Western World” by Vanity Fair, reflecting her extravagant lifestyle.
She mirrors renowned author James Joyce in her financial mismanagement whereby following a decade-long hiatus in her writing, she lost her house and downsized to a rental property in Knightsbridge, which became her home for the majority of her remaining lifetime.
Despite facing periodic criticism for a perceived lack of variety in her storylines, O’Brien received cheers for her accurate portrayals of dialogue, scenario, and female representation, earning her comparisons to literary giants such as Virginia Woolf, Dylan Thomas, and James Joyce. Philip Roth labelled her as “the most proficient female writer currently penning English fiction”.
O’Brien openly threw her weight behind the Irish republican cause. In 1972, she spearheaded a protest march against the imprisonment of then IRA chief Seán Mac Stiofáin. In The New York Times in 1994, she lauded Gerry Adams, equating his potential in an alternate existence to a monk translating Gospels into Gaelic. In 2006, she added a poem of hers to a book that marked the 25th anniversary of the H-Blocks hunger strikes.
Her reputation as an extensive character or a flamboyant self-creation was polarising. One reporter once equated an interview with her to being part of an intense theatrical scene, alongside the leading lady who penned the screenplay herself.
In 2021, O’Brien provided 50 containers comprising a miscellany of her notes, drafts, amendments and correspondences from 2009 to 2021 to the National Library, complementing her previous donation of resources from 2000 to 2009. Back in 2000, Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia procured her collection of documents dating from 1939 to 2000. Her portrait, crafted by Mandy O’Neill, is displayed at the National Gallery of Ireland.
Her children, Carlo and Marcus, are her surviving kin.