The Irish author Edna O’Brien, famous for her groundbreaking and feminist literature, died on Saturday at the age of 93, her representative and publishing house announced today.
Edna O’Brien passed away “peacefully on Saturday, July 27, after a long illness,” according to a message from her representative Caroline Michel and her publisher Faber, posted on the publisher’s account on platform X.
It is with great sadness that Caroline Michel at PFD and Faber announce the death of beloved author Edna O’Brien. She died peacefully on Saturday 27 July after a long illness. Our thoughts are with her family and friends, in particular her sons Marcus and Carlo. The family has… pic.twitter.com/mU2z5BsZiC
— Faber Books (@FaberBooks) July 28, 2024
“Edna O’Brien was one of the greatest writers of our time,” the announcement reads. “She revolutionized Irish literature, depicting women’s lives and the complexities of the human condition in luminous and simple prose, which had a profound impact on so many writers who followed her.”
Irish President Michael D. Higgins described her as “one of the most outstanding writers of the modern era,” paying tribute to the “wonderful” author, endowed with the “moral stature to confront Irish society along with realities long ignored,” calling her a “fearless truth-teller” and a beloved friend.
Twice nominated in France for the Médicis and Femina foreign novel awards, in 2013 for her autobiography “The Country Girls” (published in Greek as “Κορίτσια από την επαρχία” by Glaros) and in 2016 for her novel “The Little Red Chairs” (“Οι Μικρές κόκκινες καρέκλες” by Kleidarithmos), the Irish author received the 2018 PEN/Nabokov Award, one of the most prestigious American PEN awards, for “breaking down social and sexual barriers that existed against women in Ireland and far beyond.”
In 2019, the Femina award jury bestowed a special prize on her for her body of work.
Her first novel, “The Country Girls,” a story of the sexual initiation of two girls, caused a scandal in 1960 in her homeland, then a strictly Catholic and conservative Ireland. The book was banned from being sold in Dublin bookstores and was sometimes burned for “lack of religion and pornography.” Her next six novels met with the same fate.
In her nearly twenty novels, the Irish author depicted her country as a violent and regressive character. With her raw and lyrical language, Edna O’Brien explored the private lives of women sacrificed by an education she described as repressive and medieval.
