NEW YORK (AP) 鈥� Edna O'Brien, Ireland's literary pride and outlaw who scandalized her native land with her debut novel 鈥淭he Country Girls鈥� before gaining international acclaim as a storyteller and iconoclast that found her welcomed everywhere from Dublin to the White House, has died. She was 93.
O'Brien died Saturday after a long illness, according to a statement by her publisher Faber and the literary agency PFD.
鈥淎 defiant and courageous spirit, Edna constantly strove to break new artistic ground, to write truthfully, from a place of deep feeling,鈥� Faber said in a statement. 鈥淭he vitality of her prose was a mirror of her zest for life: she was the very best company, kind, generous, mischievous, brave.鈥�
O鈥橞rien published more than 20 books, most of them novels and story collections, and would know fully what she called the 鈥渆xtremities of joy and sorrow, love, crossed love and unrequited love, success and failure, fame and slaughter.鈥� Few so concretely and poetically challenged Ireland鈥檚 taboos on religion, sex and gender. Few wrote so fiercely, so sensually about loneliness, rebellion, desire and persecution. A world traveler in mind and body, O鈥橞rien was as likely to imagine the longings of an Irish nun as to take in a man鈥檚 鈥渂oyish smile鈥� in the midst of a 鈥減onderous London club.鈥�
O鈥橞rien was an unknown about to turn 30, living with her husband and two small children outside of London, when 鈥淭he Country Girls鈥� became one of Ireland鈥檚 most polarizing works of fiction in memory. Written in just three weeks and published in 1960, for an advance of roughly $75, 鈥淭he Country Girls鈥� follows the lives of two young women 鈥� Caithleen (Kate) Brady and Bridget (Baba) Brennan journey from a rural convent to the risks and adventures of Dublin. Admirers were as caught up in their defiance and awakening as would-be censors were enraged by such passages as 鈥淗e opened his braces and let his trousers slip down around the ankles鈥� and 鈥淗e patted my knees with his other hand. I was excited and warm and violent.鈥�
Fame, wanted or otherwise, was O鈥橞rien鈥檚 ever after. Her novel was praised and purchased in London and New York while back in Ireland it was labeled 鈥渇ilth鈥� by Minister of Justice Charles Haughey and burned publicly in O鈥橞rien鈥檚 home town of Tuamgraney, County Clare. Detractors also included O鈥橞rien鈥檚 parents and her husband, the author Ernest Gebler, from whom O鈥橞rien was already becoming estranged.
O鈥橞rien would be recognized well beyond the world of books. The 1980s British band Dexy鈥檚 Midnight Runners鈥� named her alongside Eugene O鈥橬eill, Samuel Beckett and Oscar Wilde among others in the literary tribute 鈥淏urn It Down.鈥� She dined at the White House with then-first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton and Jack Nicholson and befriended Jacqueline Kennedy, whom she remembered as a 鈥渃reature of paradoxes. While being private and immured she also had a hunger for intimacy 鈥� it was as if the barriers she had put up needed at times to be battered down.鈥�
O鈥橞rien鈥檚 other books included the novels 鈥淎ugust Is a Wicked Month,鈥� the story of a woman鈥檚 sexual liberation that was banned in parts of Ireland; 鈥淒own By The River,鈥� based on a true story about a teenage Irish girl who becomes pregnant after being raped by her father, and autobiographical 鈥淭he Light of Evening,鈥� in which a famous author returns to Ireland to see her ailing mother. Her most recent work, 鈥淕irl,鈥� a novel about victims of Boko Harem, came out in 2019.
Josephine Edna O鈥橞rien was one of four children raised on a farm where 鈥渢he relics of riches remained. It was a life full of contradictions. We had an avenue, but it was full of potholes; there was a gatehouse, but another couple lived there.鈥� Her father was a violent alcoholic, her mother a talented letter writer who disapproved of her daughter鈥檚 profession, quite likely out of jealousy. Lena O鈥橞rien鈥檚 hold on the author鈥檚 imagination, the force of her regrets made her a lifelong muse and a near stand-in Ireland itself, 鈥渢he cupboard with all things in it, the tabernacle with God in it, the lake with the legends in it.鈥�
By her early 20s, she was working in a pharmacy in Dublin and reading Tolstoy, Thackeray and O鈥機onnor among others in her spare time. She had dreams of writing since sneaking out to the nearby fields as a child to work on stories, but doubted the relevance of her life until she read a biography of James Joyce and learned that 鈥淧ortrait Of An Artist As a Young Man鈥� was autobiographical. She began writing fiction that ran in the literary magazine The Bell and found work reviewing manuscripts for the publishing house Hutchinson, where editors were impressed enough by her summaries to commission what became 鈥淭he Country Girls.鈥�
鈥淚 cried a lot writing 鈥楾he Country Girls,鈥� but scarcely noticed the tears. Anyhow, they were good tears. They touched on feelings that I did not know I had. Before my eyes, infinitely clear, came that former world in which I believed our fields and hollows had some old music slumbering in them, centuries old,鈥� she wrote in her memoir.
鈥淭he words poured out of me, and the pen above the paper was not moving fast enough, so that I sometimes feared they would be lost forever.鈥�
Hillel Italie, The Associated Press
