Edna O'Brien

Edna O'Brien DBE
O'Brien in 2016
Born	Josephine Edna O'Brien (1930-12-15)15 December 1930 Tuamgraney, County Clare, Ireland
Died	27 July 2024(2024-07-27) (aged 93) London, England
Occupation	Novelist memoirist playwright poet short-story writer
Language	English
Period	1960–2019
Notable works	The Country Girls Girl with Green Eyes Girls in Their Married Bliss August Is a Wicked Month Casualties of Peace House of Splendid Isolation Down by the River Wild Decembers In the Forest The Light of Evening Saints and Sinners Country Girl The Little Red Chairs Girl
Notable awards	Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction 1990 Irish PEN Award 2001 Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award 2011 Saoi of Aosdána 2015 David Cohen Prize 2019 Ordre des Arts et des Lettres – Commandeur 2021
Spouse	Ernest Gébler ​ ​ (m. 1954; div. 1964)​
Children	2, including Carlo Gébler

Josephine Edna O'Brien DBE (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 biennial David Cohen Prize in 2019. France made her a 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.