Edna O'Brien

Josephine Edna O'Brien (15 December 1930 – 27 July 2024) was an Irish novelist, memoirist, playwright and short-story writer whose work often explored the inner lives, sexuality and social constraints experienced by women in mid-20th-century Ireland and beyond. She achieved wide recognition with her debut novel The Country Girls (1960), which provoked censorship and controversy in Ireland but established her as a major literary voice; over a six-decade career she published more than 20 novels, memoirs and biographies and received numerous national and international honours.