Edna O'Brien explained

Birth Name:Josephine Edna O'Brien
Birth Date:15 December 1930
Birth Place:Tuamgraney, County Clare, Ireland
Death Place:London, England
Resting Place:Inis Cealtra, County Clare
Language:English
Period:1960–2019
Children:2, including Carlo Gébler

Josephine Edna O'Brien (15 December 1930 – 27 July 2024) was an Irish novelist, memoirist, playwright, poet and short-story writer.

O'Brien's works often revolve around the inner feelings of women and their problems relating to men and society as a whole. Her first novel, The Country Girls (1960), has been credited with breaking silence on sexual matters and social issues during a repressive period in Ireland after the Second World War. The book was banned and denounced from the pulpit. Many of her novels were translated into French. Her memoir, Country Girl, was published in 2012, and her last novel, Girl, was published in 2019. Many of her novels were based in Ireland, but Girl was a fictional account of a victim of the Chibok kidnapping in Nigeria.

In 2015 she was elected to Aosdána by her fellow artists and honoured with the title Saoi. She was the recipient of many other awards and honours, winning the Irish PEN Award in 2001 and the David Cohen Prize in 2019. France made her a French: [[Commander (order)|Commandeur]] de l'[[Ordre des Arts et des Lettres]] in 2021. Her short story collection Saints and Sinners won the 2011 Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, the world's richest prize for that genre.

Early life and education

Josephine Edna O'Brien was born on 15 December 1930[1] to farmer[2] Michael O'Brien and Lena Cleary at Tuamgraney in County Clare, Ireland, a place she would later describe as "fervid" and "enclosed". She was the youngest child of "a strict, religious family". They lived at "Drewsborough" (also "Drewsboro"), a "large two-storey house", which her mother kept in "semi-grandeur".[3] Michael O'Brien, "whose family had seen wealthier times" as landowners,[4] had inherited a "thousand acres or more" and "a fortune from rich uncles", but was a "profligate" hard-drinker who gambled away his inheritance, the land "sold off in bits ... or bartered to pay debts".[5] Her mother Lena "came from a poorer background".[6] According to O'Brien, her mother was a strong, controlling woman who had emigrated temporarily to America. She worked for some time as a maid in Brooklyn, New York, for a well-off Irish-American family before returning to Ireland to raise her family.

From 1941 to 1946, O'Brien was educated at St. Raphael's College, a boarding school run by the Sisters of Mercy[7] in Loughrea, County Galway,[8] a circumstance that contributed to a "suffocating" childhood. She recalled, "I rebelled against the coercive and stifling religion into which I was born and bred. It was very frightening and all-pervasive. I'm glad it has gone."[9] She was fond of a nun, as she deeply missed her mother and tried to identify the nun with her.[10]

In 1950, having studied at night at a pharmaceutical college and worked in a Dublin pharmacy during the day,[11] O'Brien was awarded a licence as a pharmacist.

Career

In Ireland, O'Brien read such writers as Tolstoy, Thackeray, and F. Scott Fitzgerald. In Dublin, she bought Introducing James Joyce, with an introduction written by T. S. Eliot, and said later that when she learned that James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man was autobiographical, it made her realise where she might turn, should she want to write herself. "Unhappy houses are a very good incubation for stories," she said.[9]

In London, she started work as a reader for Hutchinson, where, based on her reports, she was commissioned for £50 to write a novel. She published her first book, The Country Girls, in 1960.[12] This was the first part of a trilogy of novels (later collected as The Country Girls Trilogy), which included The Lonely Girl (1962) and Girls in Their Married Bliss (1964). Shortly after their publication, these books were placed on the censorship index and banned in her native country because of their frank portrayals of the sex lives of their characters. O'Brien herself was accused of "corrupting the minds of young women". She later said, "I felt no fame. I was married. I had young children. All I could hear out of Ireland from my mother and anonymous letters was bile and odium and outrage".[13] The book was also denounced from the pulpit.[14] It was claimed that copies of The Country Girls were burned when it was published, but an investigation in 2015 found no witness or evidence and it was concluded that the story was probably not true.[15]

Many of her novels were not well received in Ireland. Her fourth novel, August Is a Wicked Month (1965), in which an unhappily married woman has a "sensual awakening on the French Riviera", was excoriated in the press and banned in Ireland. In The Forest (2002), a fictional account of a notorious Irish murder, was described by Irish Times critic Fintan O'Toole as "morally criminal".

In the 1960s, O'Brien was a patient of Scottish psychiatrist R. D. Laing: "I thought he might be able to help me. He couldn't do that – he was too mad himself – but he opened doors", she said later.[9] Her novel, A Pagan Place (1970), was about her repressive childhood. Her parents were vehemently against all things related to literature and her mother strongly disapproved of her daughter's career as a writer. Once, when her mother found a Seán O'Casey book in her daughter's possession, she tried to burn it.[16]

Alongside Teddy Taylor (Conservative), Michael Foot (Labour) and Derek Worlock (Catholic Archbishop of Liverpool), O'Brien was a panel member for the first edition of the BBC's Question Time in 1979, and was awarded the first answer in the programme's history ("Edna O'Brien, you were born there", referring to Ireland).[17] Taylor's death in 2017 left her the sole surviving member. In 1980, she wrote a play, Virginia, about Virginia Woolf. It was first staged in June 1980 at the Stratford Festival, Ontario, Canada, and subsequently in the West End of London at the Theatre Royal Haymarket with Maggie Smith and directed by Robin Phillips.[18] The play was staged at The Public Theater in New York in 1985. Also in 1980, O'Brien appeared alongside Patrick McGoohan in the TV movie The Hard Way.[9]

Other works included a biography of James Joyce, published in 1999, and a biography of the poet Lord Byron, Byron in Love, in 2009. House of Splendid Isolation (1994), her novel about a terrorist who goes on the run, marked a new phase in her writing career. Part of her research involved visiting Irish republican Dominic McGlinchey, later shot dead, whom she called "a grave and reflective man". O'Brien described him as "most reflective and at the same time most forthcoming".[19] She later told Marianne Heron of the Irish Independent that she had told McGlinchey "that she liked everything about him except what he was [and] he told her that his mother said the same thing".[20] O'Brien also denied having an affair with McGlinchey, and she claimed later that, as a result of her research, she had to refute questions as to whether she "had love affairs with republicans".[21]

Down by the River (1996) concerned an underage rape victim who sought an abortion in England, the "Miss X case". In the Forest (2002) dealt with the real-life case of Brendan O'Donnell, who abducted and murdered a woman, her three-year-old son, and a priest in rural Ireland.[9]

O'Brien's last novel, Girl (2019), was based on the abduction of a group of girls in Nigeria. She travelled to that country twice to do research, which included interviewing "escaped girls, their mothers and sisters, to trauma specialists, doctors and Unicef". She later said that she had tried to create a "kind of mythic story from all this pain and horror", and was disappointed by its poor reception in the US, although it was well-received in France and Germany. She opened the Avignon theatre festival with a reading from the book in 2020.[22] Poet Imtiaz Dharker, judge for the 2019 David Cohen Prize said about Girl: "I thought I had the course of O'Brien's work mapped out before the judging came around, and then, towards the end of the process, another great tome dropped through the letterbox, changing the whole terrain". O'Brien regarded Girl as a continuation of the focus of her career, "to chart and get inside the mind, soul, heart and emotion of girls in some form of restriction, some form of life that isn't easy, but who find a way to literally plough their way through and come out as winners of sort – maybe not getting prizes – but come through their experiences and live to tell the tale. It is a theme I have lived and often cried with".

Her work includes references to Irish lore and history, and mentions of distinctive geographic features such as Druids' circles, Inis Cealtra, and Lough Derg, County Donegal.

Many of her works were translated into French, with The Country Girls translation published in 1960 by Éditions Julliard and in 1962 by Presses de la Cité. Later titles were published by Gallimard and later by Fayard. In 2010 she formed an exclusive relationship with publisher Sabine Wespieser.[22] Her work was much loved in France, "both for the quality of her writing but also for her universal struggles which received a particular resonance in France" (French Embassy in London).[23] After the publication of Girl in 2019, she featured in French publications that included Télérama, Elle, Le Monde des Livres, and Le Journal du Dimanche.

Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, US, holds her papers from 1939 to 2000. More recent papers are held at University College Dublin.[24] In September 2021, it was announced that O'Brien would be donating her archive to the National Library of Ireland. The library was to hold papers from O'Brien covering the period of 2000 to 2021[25] and including correspondence, drafts, notes, and revisions.[26]

Personal life

In 1954, O'Brien met and married, against her parents' wishes, the Irish writer Ernest Gébler, and the couple moved to London in 1959, where, as she later put it, "We lived in SW 20. Sub-urb-ia".[9] They had two sons, Sasha,[27] an architect who lives in London,[28] and writer Carlo Gébler, but the marriage ended in 1964. Initially believing he deserved credit for helping her become an accomplished writer, Ernest came to believe he was the author of O'Brien's books. In 2009, Carlo revealed that his parents' marriage had been volatile, with bitter rows between his mother and father over her success.[29] Ernest Gébler died in 1998.[30]

O'Brien remained in London until her death, although she often visited Ireland. In 2020, at the age of 90, she was renting a flat in Chelsea.[27]

The reaction to The Country Girls in Ireland damaged her relationship with her mother, who was ashamed of her daughter.[27] (Her mother died in 1977.[31]) The press often portrayed O'Brien as a "party girl", with American magazine Vanity Fair calling her "the playgirl of the western world". She socialised with glamorous men such as Marlon Brando and Robert Mitchum, but said later that she was "doing the cooking" at most of the parties.[27]

Death and legacy

Edna O'Brien died following a long illness in London, England, on 27 July 2024, at the age of 93.[32] [33] [34] She is buried on Inis Cealtra (Holy Island), an island in Lough Derg.[35]

According to Scottish novelist Andrew O'Hagan, O'Brien's place in Irish letters is assured: "She changed the nature of Irish fiction; she brought the woman's experience and sex and internal lives of those people on to the page, and she did it with style, and she made those concerns international." Irish novelist Colum McCann avers that O'Brien has been "the advance scout for the Irish imagination" for over fifty years.[9]

Irish president Michael D. Higgins, also a writer and poet, wrote: "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".[36] [33]

Recognition, awards, and honours

Philip Roth once described her as "the most gifted woman now writing in English".[37] A former president of Ireland, Mary Robinson, cited her as "one of the great creative writers of her generation".[38] Others who hailed her as one of the greatest writers of her time included John Banville, Michael Ondaatje and Ian McKellen.[39]

O'Brien's awards include the Yorkshire Post Book Award in 1970 (for A Pagan Place), and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in 1990 for Lantern Slides. In 2006, she was appointed adjunct professor of English Literature in University College, Dublin.[40]

In 2009, O'Brien was honoured with the Bob Hughes Lifetime Achievement Award during a special ceremony at the year's Irish Book Awards in Dublin.[41] Her collection Saints and Sinners won the 2011 Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award,[42] [22] with judge Thomas McCarthy referring to her as "the Solzhenitsyn of Irish life". RTÉ aired a documentary on her as part of its Arts strand in early 2012.[43] [44]

In 2017, for her contributions to literature, she was appointed an honorary Dame of the Order of the British Empire.[45]

She was presented with the Torc of the Saoi of Aosdána in 2015 by Irish President Michael D. Higgins. In 2024, Higgins remembered her "election as Saoi, chosen by her fellow artists, was the ultimate expression of the esteem in which her work is held". He also presented her with the Presidential Distinguished Service Award in 2018.[46]

In 2019, O'Brien was awarded the David Cohen Prize for Literature at a ceremony in London. The £40,000 prize, awarded every two years in recognition of a living writer's lifetime achievement in literature, has been described as the "UK and Ireland Nobel in literature". Judge David Park said "In winning the David Cohen Prize, Edna O'Brien adds her name to a literary roll call of honour".

Girl (2019) was nominated for two awards in France: the Prix Médicis and the Prix Femina étranger.[47]

In March 2021, France announced that it would be naming O'Brien a Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, the country's highest honour for the arts.[48] [22]

Honours and awards include:

List of works

Novels

Short story collections

Drama

Screenplays

Nonfiction books

Children's books

Poetry collections

Further reading

External links

Notes and References

  1. News: DePalma . Anthony . Edna O'Brien, Writer Who Gave Voice to Women's Passions, Dies at 93 . 28 July 2024 . The New York Times . 28 July 2024 . 29 July 2024 . https://web.archive.org/web/20240729021934/https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/28/obituaries/edna-o-brien-dead.html . live.
  2. The Art of Fiction No. 82. Shusha. Guppy. 31 August 1984. Summer 1984. 92. The Paris Review. www.theparisreview.org. 12 April 2020. 27 October 2020 . https://web.archive.org/web/20201027092155/https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/2978/the-art-of-fiction-no-82-edna-obrien. live.
  3. Web site: Edna O'Brien: from Ireland's cultural outcast to literary darling. 10 October 2015. The Guardian. 31 August 2020. 8 November 2020 . https://web.archive.org/web/20201108125626/https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/oct/10/edna-obrien-ireland-outcast-to-literary-darling. live.
  4. Web site: Country Girl: a Memoir by Edna O'Brien: review. Frances. Wilson. 8 October 2012. www.telegraph.co.uk. 12 April 2020. 12 April 2020. https://web.archive.org/web/20200412204050/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/9586710/Country-Girl-a-Memoir-by-Edna-OBrien-review.html. live.
  5. Country Girl: A Memoir, Edna O'Brien, 2012, p. 4
  6. Web site: Who's still afraid of Edna O'Brien?. independent. 11 February 2019. 12 April 2020. 12 April 2020. https://web.archive.org/web/20200412204049/https://www.independent.ie/style/whos-still-afraid-of-edna-obrien-37796955.html. live.
  7. News: Edna O'Brien Is Still Gripped by Dark Moral Questions. Roslyn. Sulcas. The New York Times. 25 March 2016. 12 April 2020. 12 April 2020. https://web.archive.org/web/20200412201509/https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/26/books/edna-obrien-is-still-gripped-by-dark-moral-questions.html. live.
  8. Conversations with Edna O'Brien, ed. Alice Hughes Kernowski, University Press of Mississippi 2014, p. xvii
  9. News: Rachel. Cooke. Edna O'Brien: A writer's imaginative life commences in childhood. The Observer. 6 February 2011. 6 February 2011. London, UK. 9 December 2018. https://web.archive.org/web/20181209123841/https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/feb/06/edna-obrien-ireland-interview?INTCMP=SRCH. live.
  10. News: Mary. Kenny. Mary Kenny . Edna's passions: the literati, the film stars and the nun. Irish Independent. 29 September 2012. 29 September 2012. 3 November 2012. https://web.archive.org/web/20121103071841/http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/books/ednas-passions-the-literati-the-film-stars-and-the-nun-3243707.html. live.
  11. Conversations with Edna O'Brien, ed. Alice Hughes Kernowski, University Press of Mississippi 2014, pp. xvii, 56
  12. O'Brien, Edna. The Country Girls, Hutchinson, 1960.
  13. https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/edna-o-brien-i-was-lonely-cut-off-from-the-dance-of-life-1.2419776 "Edna O'Brien: 'I was lonely, cut off from the dance of life'"
  14. Web site: 7 February 2019. The Country Girls at 50. 20 July 2020. The Gloss Magazine. en-US. 20 July 2020. https://web.archive.org/web/20200720214514/https://thegloss.ie/the-country-girls-at-50/. dead.
  15. Web site: Letters to the Editor: Book-burning myth . The Times . Mary Kenny . 31 July 2024 . 31 July 2024.
  16. Web site: Edna O'Brien . Books and Writers . Petri . Liukkonen . Kuusankoski Public Library . Finland . https://web.archive.org/web/20040401091922/http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/eobrien.htm . 1 April 2004 . dead.
  17. Web site: Review: First Ever Question Time. 13 August 2020. 25 September 2022. 25 September 2022. https://web.archive.org/web/20220925223119/https://going-postal.com/2020/08/review-first-ever-question-time/. live.
  18. Web site: Stratford Festival Archives | Details. archives.stratfordfestival.ca. 8 April 2019. 8 April 2019. https://web.archive.org/web/20190408145530/https://archives.stratfordfestival.ca/AIS/Details/people/8686. live.
  19. News: Heron . M. . Edna Explains . Irish Independent. 1035156580 . 9 April 1994. 1.
  20. News: Heron . M. . Edna Explains . Irish Independent. 1035156580 . 9 April 1994. 1.
  21. News: Sheridan . M. . 'I Don't Have Time to be a Scarlet Woman' . Sunday Independent. 1136200154 . 25 August 1996. 11.
  22. Web site: Ruth . Comerford. Edna O'Brien to receive France's highest cultural distinction . The Bookseller . 3 March 2021 . 1 August 2024.
  23. Web site: Smith . Josh . Edna O’Brien Honored with France's Highest Cultural Distinction . Faber . 2 March 2021 . 1 August 2024.
  24. Web site: UCD Library Special Collections holds the papers of Edna O'Brien. 3 October 2022. 3 October 2022. https://web.archive.org/web/20221003184101/https://www.ucd.ie/specialcollections/archives/obrien/. live.
  25. News: Crowley. Sinéad. 10 September 2021. Edna O'Brien archive acquired by National Library of Ireland. RTÉ Culture. 16 September 2021. 16 September 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210916113605/https://www.rte.ie/culture/2021/0909/1245719-edna-obrien-archive-acquired-by-national-library-of-ireland/. live.
  26. News: O'Riordan. Ellen. 10 September 2021. Papers of Edna O'Brien find lasting home at National Library of Ireland. live. 16 September 2021. The Irish Times. en. https://web.archive.org/web/20210910081356/https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/papers-of-edna-o-brien-find-lasting-home-at-national-library-of-ireland-1.4670246 . 10 September 2021.
  27. Edna. O'Brien. Hughes . Sarah . Edna O'Brien on turning 90: 'I can't pretend that I haven't made mistakes' . the Guardian . 13 December 2020 . 29 July 2024.
  28. Gail . Walker . Carlo. Gébler]. Carlo Gébler . Secret & Lies: Carlo Gebler . . 22 July 2005 . 29 July 2024.
  29. "Son reveals Edna O'Brien's rows with jealous husband" by Lynne Kelleher, Irish Independent, 19 July 2009.
  30. News: Ernest Gebler; Irish Author of Novels, Plays and Films. Los Angeles Times. 19 February 1998. 25 September 2022. 25 September 2022. https://web.archive.org/web/20220925190529/https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1998-feb-19-mn-20925-story.html. live.
  31. Web site: Clare People: Edna O'Brien . Clare Libraries . 15 December 1930 . 1 August 2024.
  32. News: Irish author Edna O'Brien has died aged 93 . 28 July 2024 . . en . 29 July 2024 . https://web.archive.org/web/20240729021935/https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/2024/07/28/irish-author-edna-obrien-has-died-aged-93/ . live.
  33. Web site: Media Library News Releases . 28 July 2024 . Michael D.. Higgins. Michael D. Higgins. Office of the President of Ireland . en . 29 July 2024 . https://web.archive.org/web/20240729021939/https://president.ie/en/media-library/news-releases/statement-by-president-michael-d-higgins-on-the-death-of-edna-obrien . live.
  34. Web site: O'Rourke . Evelyn . Acclaimed Irish writer Edna O'Brien dies aged 93 . RTÉ . 29 July 2024 . English . 28 July 2024 . 29 July 2024 . https://web.archive.org/web/20240729021943/https://www.rte.ie/news/2024/0728/1462283-edna-obrien/ . live.
  35. News: O'Brien . Fergal . Edna O'Brien a 'speaker of truth', funeral told . 10 August 2024 . RTÉ News . 10 August 2024.
  36. Web site: Gallagher . Charlotte . Edna O'Brien: 'Fearless' Irish author dies aged 93 . BBC News . 28 July 2024 . 29 July 2024.
  37. News: Edna. O'Brien. Watching Obama. The Daily Beast. 17 January 2009. 27 September 2012. 21 October 2016. https://web.archive.org/web/20161021111728/http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2009/01/17/a-poem-for-barack.html. live.
  38. News: Mary. Robinson. Mary Robinson. A life well lived, well told. The Irish Times. 29 September 2012. 29 September 2012. 29 September 2012. https://web.archive.org/web/20120929025519/http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend/2012/0929/1224324581393.html. dead.
  39. News: Irish novelist Edna O'Brien wins lifetime achievement award. The Guardian. Sian. Cain. 26 November 2019. 25 September 2022. 25 September 2022. https://web.archive.org/web/20220925195305/https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/nov/26/irish-novelist-edna-obrien-wins-lifetime-achievement-award-country-girls-david-cohen-prize-nobel. live.
  40. News: UCD bestows Ulysses Medal on Edna O'Brien. University College, Dublin. 9 June 2006. 9 June 2006. 17 November 2017. https://web.archive.org/web/20171117182105/http://www.ucd.ie/news/jun06/060906_ulysses_medal_2.htm. live.
  41. News: O'Brien to be honoured at awards. The Irish Times. 5 June 2009. 5 June 2009.
  42. News: Edna O'Brien wins Frank O'Connor Award. Irish Examiner. Thomas Crosbie Holdings. 18 September 2011. 19 September 2011. 15 July 2018. https://web.archive.org/web/20180715211040/https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/ireland/edna-obrien-wins-frank-oconnor-award-521077.html. live.
  43. News: RTÉ launches Spring Season on TV. RTÉ Ten. RTÉ. 16 January 2012. 16 January 2012. There will also be a number of major Arts commissions throughout Spring including profiles of Edna O'Brien and Finbar Furey and "Ballymun Lullaby", the award-winning musical documentary that follows music teacher Ron Cooney on a journey of creating a collection of music that aims to bring the community of Ballymun together.. 16 November 2012. https://web.archive.org/web/20121116020915/http://www.rte.ie/ten/2012/0116/ocarroll.html. live.
  44. News: Edna O'Brien. RTÉ Television. RTÉ. 11 December 2012. 27 May 2016. https://web.archive.org/web/20160527064022/http://www.rte.ie/tv/programmes/ednaobrien.html. live.
  45. Web site: Honorary Awards. British Government. 19 March 2023.
  46. Web site: Statement by President Michael D. Higgins on the death of Edna O'Brien . Higgins . Michael D. . 28 July 2024 . Irish: [[Áras an Uachtaráin]] .
  47. Web site: Edna O'Brien's "Girl" nominated for two awards in France . Peters Fraser and Dunlop (PFD) Literary Agents . 2 October 2019 . 1 August 2024.
  48. Web site: 3 March 2021. Edna O'Brien to receive France's highest honour for the arts. 3 March 2021. The Guardian. en. 3 March 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210303124604/https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/mar/03/edna-obrien-to-receive-frances-highest-honour-for-the-arts. live.
  49. News: Scholars hit back over New Yorker 'hatchet job' on Edna O'Brien . such . . 12 April 2020 . Alberge . Dalya . 22 March 2024 . 23 April 2023 . https://web.archive.org/web/20230423230148/https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/apr/12/scholars-hit-back-over-new-yorker-hatchet-job-on-edna-obrien . live.
  50. Parker . Ian . Edna O'Brien Is Still Writing About Women on the Run . The New Yorker . 28 July 2024 . 7 October 2019 . 17 January 2024 . https://web.archive.org/web/20240117041218/https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/10/14/edna-obrien-is-still-writing-about-women-on-the-run . live.
  51. Web site: Golden Plate Awardees of the American Academy of Achievement. www.achievement.org. American Academy of Achievement. 17 August 2020. 15 December 2016. https://web.archive.org/web/20161215023909/https://achievement.org/our-history/golden-plate-awards/. live.
  52. News: Rosita. Boland. Banville wins novel of year at awards. The Irish Times. 23 November 2012. 23 November 2012. 20 January 2013. https://web.archive.org/web/20130120152905/http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2012/1123/1224327011713.html. dead.
  53. Web site: 2018 PEN American Lifetime Career and Achievement Awards. PEN America. February 2017. 7 February 2018. 5 October 2018. https://web.archive.org/web/20181005141853/https://pen.org/2018-lifetime-career-achievement-honorees/. live.
  54. News: Edna O'Brien wins the 'UK and Ireland Nobel award' for lifetime achievement: Country Girls author receives £40,000 David Cohen prize which is seen as Nobel precursor. The Irish Times. Dublin. Martin. Doyle. 26 November 2019. 26 November 2019. 28 November 2019. https://web.archive.org/web/20191128171723/https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/edna-o-brien-wins-the-uk-and-ireland-nobel-award-for-lifetime-achievement-1.4095722. live.
  55. Web site: Edna O'Brien wins the Prix Femina Special . Peters Fraser and Dunlop (PFD) Literary Agents . 5 November 2019 . 29 July 2024.
  56. Web site: Contreras . Isabel . Le Femina 2019 pour Sylvain Prudhomme, Manuel Vilas, Edna O'Brien et Emmanuelle Lambert . Livres Hebdo . 5 November 2019 . fr . 29 July 2024.
  57. News: Secrets and ties. The Guardian. Alfred. Hickling. 25 May 2009. 25 May 2009. 6 September 2013. https://web.archive.org/web/20130906134128/http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2009/may/25/brenda-blethyn-edna-obrien-haunted-theatre. live.

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