Author Edna O’Brien dies at age of 93

Acclaimed Irish author, Edna O’Brien, has died at the age of 93.

Her literary agent, PFD, and publisher, Faber, said she died peacefully on Saturday after a long illness.

They said their thoughts were with her “family and friends, in particular her sons Marcus and Carlo”.

Born in rural County Clare in 1930, O’Brien found her education by nuns suffocating and moved to Dublin to escape, subsequently spending much of her life in London.

She published her first novel The Country Girls in 1960.

The ground-breaking account of two female friends and the portrayal of female sexuality scandalised Ireland.

The novel and her two subsequent stories, The Lonely Girl and Girls in Their Married Bliss were banned by the Irish government.

Some copies were even burnt, including in O’Brien’s home village.

But the books became huge successes and were credited with challenging traditional societal views.

O’Brien wrote more than 20 novels, as well as dramas and biographies.

Many of her novels detailed the struggles of women in a male dominated world.

The writer was also the recipient of numerous awards including the Pen Nabokov prize.

Ireland’s president, Michael D Higgins said he felt “great sorrow” and described O’Brien as a “fearless teller of truths, a superb writer possessed of the moral courage to confront Irish society with realities long ignored and suppressed.

“Through that deeply insightful work, rich in humanity, Edna O’Brien was one of the first writers to provide a true voice to the experiences of women in Ireland in their different generations and played an important role in transforming the status of women across Irish society.

“While the beauty of her work was immediately recognised abroad, it is important to remember the hostile reaction it provoked among those who wished for the lived experience of women to remain far from the world of Irish literature, with her books shamefully banned upon their early publication.”

In 2020 Edna O’Brien told the Guardian newspaper that she had not had “that brilliant a life in many ways”.

She added: “It was quite difficult and that’s not said in self-pity but one thing that is true is that language and the mystery of language and the miracle of language has, as that lovely song Carrickfergus says, carried me over… the richness of great language.”