Edna O'Brien

The BBC Radio 4 dramatisation of Edna O'Brien's The Country Girls trilogy begins in August 2019. Edna O'Brien's wonderful, wild and moving novel shocked the nation on its publication in 1960. Adapted for the stage by the author, The Country Girls, the play, is a highly theatrical and free-flowing telling of this classic coming of age story. This new edition of The Country Girls was published to coincide with its UK premiere at Chichester Festival Theatre in June 2017. Edna O'Brien's stunning new novel Girl will be published by Faber in September 2019, available to pre-order now.

From the iconic author of The Country Girls trilogy, a modern Irish coming-of-age classic.'The taboo-breaking, the fabulous prose - there's no one like Edna O'Brien.' Anne Enright'Novels of heart-breaking empathy, rigorous honesty and peerless beauty.' Eimear McBride'A profound intelligence spurred on by a tangible, fizzing joy.' Megan Nolan'Brilliant and brave.' Ann Patchett 'Glittering energy.' Colm TóibínAfter leaving for a religious community in Belgium, a young woman becomes lost in memories of her childhood in rural Ireland, reflecting on the rituals of village life, the people she encountered, the enchanting beauty of the landscape, the concept of home - and the shocking event that led to her departure ...

The legendary Edna O'Brien's tale of a mysterious stranger spellbinding an Irish village 'reminds you why you read books in the first place' (Observer).'The great Edna O'Brien has written her masterpiece.' Philip Roth'Extraordinary . . . Courageous.' J. M. Coetzee'Fierce and beautiful.' Anne Enright'Exemplary.' Colm Tóibín ONE OF THE SUNDAY TIMES' TOP 100 NOVELS OF THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURYWhen a man who calls himself a faith healer arrives in a small, west-coast Irish village, the community is soon under the spell of this charismatic stranger from the Balkans. One woman in particular, Fidelma McBride, becomes enthralled in a fatal attraction that leads to unimaginable consequences. 'Magnificent' (Sunday Times)'Beautiful' (Financial Times)'Enthralling' (Times)'Extraordinary' (Independent)'Astonishing' (New Yorker)

'O'Brien writes the most beautiful, aching stories of any writer, anywhere.' Alice Munro'The taboo-breaking, the fabulous prose - there's no one like O'Brien.' Anne Enright'Heart-breaking empathy, rigorous honesty and peerless beauty.' Eimear McBride'A profound intelligence spurred on by a tangible, fizzing joy.' Megan Nolan'Brilliant and brave.' Ann Patchett'A revolution.' John Banville'Glittering energy.' Colm TóibínSpanning five decades of writing, and winning the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, The Love Object collects the most luminous stories by Edna O'Brien that have bewitched generation after generation. Here you will find tales of families, feuds, enchantment, despair, and the manifold bonds of love. There are stories about the tension between country and city life, the instinct towards escape and nostalgia for home; always crafted in shimmering prose.

A haunting novel from the iconic Irish legend behind The Country Girls trilogy.'The taboo-breaking, the fabulous prose - there's no one like Edna O'Brien.' Anne Enright'Novels of heart-breaking empathy, rigorous honesty and peerless beauty.' Eimear McBride'A profound intelligence spurred on by a tangible, fizzing joy.' Megan Nolan'Brilliant and brave.' Ann Patchett'A revolution.' John Banville'Glittering energy.' Colm TóibínEdna O'Brien's chilling spectre of a novel, Night, is narrated by one of her most memorable characters, Mary Hooligan. Lying on a four-poster bed, unable to sleep, she recounts her (mis)adventures, courtships, and sexual encounters of the most transgressive kind in a narrative voice of blistering, radical originality. With an introduction by Andrew O'Hagan

The iconic memoir from the Irish author of the legendary The Country Girls trilogy.'Get ready to applaud, ladies and gentlemen, because there is no one like her.' Anne Enright'One of the last great lights of the golden age of Irish literature.' Eimear McBride'Glittering energy.' Colm TóibínI thought of life's many bounties, to have known the extremities of joy and sorrow, love, crossed love and unrequited love, success and failure, fame and slaughter ... Born in Ireland in 1930 and driven into exile after publication of her controversial first novel, The Country Girls, was burned in public, Edna O'Brien is now hailed as one of the most majestic writers of her era - and Country Girl is her fabulous memoir. Born in rural Ireland, O'Brien weaves the tale of her life from convent school to elopement, divorce, single-motherhood, moving on to the wild parties of 1960s bohemian in London, encounters with Hollywood giants, pop stars, and literary titans, love and unrequited love, and glamorous trips to America as a celebrity writer. Country Girl is a rich and heady accounting of the events, people, emotions, and landscape that have forged a legendary author. O'Brien recasts her life with the imaginative alchemy of a poet, and the result is a memoir of sparkling wisdom and honesty.

'Edna O'Brien writes the most beautiful, aching stories of any writer, anywhere.' Alice Munro'The taboo-breaking, the fabulous prose - there's no one like Edna.' Anne Enright 'Surprising and beautiful and courageous .. A beacon.' Megan Nolan 'Brilliant and brave.' Ann Patchett 'Glittering energy.' Colm Tóibín A woman walks the streets of Manhattan and contemplates with exquisite longing the precarious affair she has embarked on, amidst the grandeur and cacophony of the cityscape; a young Irish girl and her mother are thrilled to be invited to visit the glamorous Coughlan's but find - for all the promise of their green gorgette, silver shoes and fancy dinner parties - they leave disappointed; an Irishman in north London retraces his life as a young lad with his mates digging the streets and dreaming of the apocryphal gold, an outsider both in Ireland and England, yet he carries the lodestar of his native land. This classic collection glows with Edna O'Brien's trademark lyricism, powerful evocations of place, and heart-breaking insight into the desires and contradictions of humanity.

The best-selling author's adaptation of one of Euripides' great tragedies In time of war unspeakable unthinkable things are done... Edna O'Brien's critically acclaimed adaptation of the Euripides play dramatises the sacrifice of Agamemnon's daughter to the cause of his campaign to win back Helen of Troy." O'Brien gives force and clarity to a notoriously corrupt text; what impresses is the swift narrative drive of this seventy-five minute version and the vigour and irony of O'Brien's language" Guardian"Edna O'Brien's silky new version of Euripides" Daily Mail "O'Brien's adaptation is loyal and respectful" Sunday Times "Eloquent and compelling" Sunday Telegraph

Edna O'Brien's classic novel NIGHT takes us through one long, sleepless night with Mary Hooligan. From the center of her bed, "a four poster no less," Mary recalls her fertile past, from her childhood in the Irish countryside to the love affairs she has confronted since leaving for English shores. Wistful, wanton, this erotic reverie shows O'Brien to be one of the foremost heirs to modernism. "Very few writers use language as richly and sensuously . . . There are passages here worthy of Joyce" (Library Journal). Author Biography: Edna O'Brien is the author of eighteen works of fiction, including DOWN BY THE RIVER, HOUSE OF SPLENDID ISOLATION, TIME AND TIDE, and LANTERN SLIDES,which won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for fiction. Her book about James Joyce was published in 1999 and excerpted in THE NEW YORKER. An honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, she was born and grew up in Ireland and has lived in London for many years.