Edna O'Brien - Free Library Land Online - Biographies & Memoirs

House of Splendid Isolation

Mon, 24 Apr 1995 09:35:35 +0300

House of Splendid Isolation is a newly reissued novel from Edna O'Brien, the author of Girl—"one of the most celebrated writers in the English language" (NPR's Weekend Edition).
The heartbreaking dilemmas and the noble and bloody history of Ireland come vividly to life in the tale of Josie, a widow living in a solitary house outside an Irish village, whose home becomes the hideout of an IRA terrorist.

Time and Tide

Wed, 25 Nov 1992 15:44:56 +0200

A newly reissued novel from the author of Girl, "one of the most celebrated writers in the English language" (NPR's Weekend Edition)"As her disturbing novel clearly reveals, Edna O'Brien possesses what Henry James called an imagination for
disaster...[Time and Tide] is an anthology of heightened moments...never less than brilliantly expressed." —Joel Conarroe, The New York Times Book Review

Time and Tide is a fragmented novel detailing the loves and catastrophes—and catastrophic loves—of Nell, an Irish woman trying to make a life for herself in the literary world of London. "A whimsical beauty who has swapped the suffocating narrowness of her native land for the loveless brutality of England" (The Independent), Nell is in flight from bitter, controlling, and small-minded parents, yet risks becoming just such a mother to her own sons. She seeks comfort and acceptance,...

A Fanatic Heart

Wed, 06 May 2020 13:05:01 +0300

In these selections from twenty years of her best short fiction, Edna O'Brien's A Fanatic Heart pulls the reader into a woman's experience. Her stories portray a young Irish girl's view of obsessive love and its often wrenching pain, while tales of contemporary life show women who open themselves to sexuality, to disappointment, to madness. Throughout, there is always O'Brien's voice—wondrous, despairing, moving—examining passionate subjects that lay bare the desire and needs that can be hidden in a woman's heart.

Down by the River

Tue, 28 Oct 1997 00:11:37 +0200

Down by the River is a newly reissued novel from Edna O'Brien, the author of Girl—"one of the most celebrated writers in the English language" (NPR's Weekend Edition).
Set in the author's native Ireland, a powerful and passionate novel about a young girl who becomes pregnant by her father—a situation made worse when it becomes fodder for the gossip mill of church, state, and the town square.

Wild Decembers

Thu, 02 Dec 1999 21:25:08 +0200

Wild Decembers is a newly reissued edition of the novel by Edna O'Brien, "one of the most celebrated writers in the English language" (NPR's Weekend Edition)...

In the Forest

Mon, 02 Dec 2002 21:25:11 +0200

In the Forest is a newly reissued edition of the terrifying novel from "one of the greatest writers in the English-speaking world" (The New York Times), Edna O'Brien...

The Light of Evening

Sat, 02 Dec 2006 21:25:13 +0200

The Light of Evening is a newly reissued edition of the novel by award-winning author Edna O'Brien...

Lantern Slides

Sun, 25 Nov 1990 15:01:20 +0300

Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction"Superb...[Lantern Slides] continues the quest for origin and explanation that has preoccupied O'Brien...Her stories unearth the primeval feelings buried just below the surface of nostalgia, using memories to illuminate both what is ridiculous and what is heroic about passion." —David Leavitt, The New York Times Book Review"Her stories are brilliantly realized and often very funny...O'Brien is quite simply one of the finest short story writers of our time." —Joyce Carol OatesA newly reissued collection of stories from the author of Girl, "one of the most celebrated writers in the English language" (NPR's Weekend Edition)In twelve stories peopled with deeply etched characters, whom we come to know instantly and intimately, Lantern Slides reveals the wit and passion of a master of the short fiction form. Rich and humorous, full of struggle...

Girl

Mon, 18 Nov 2019 14:08:36 +0200

The new novel by legendary Irish author Edna O'Brien, award-winning author of The Little Red Chairs starring on BBC Imagine in July 2019: who, in her ninth decade has produced her most searing, urgent fiction in this portrait of one woman's abduction by Boko Haram. Captured, abducted and married into Boko Haram, the narrator of this story witnesses and suffers the horrors of a community of men governed by a brutal code of violence. Barely more than a girl herself, she must soon learn how to survive as a woman with a child of her own. Just as the world around her seems entirely consumed by madness, bound for hell, she is offered an escape of sorts - but only into another landscape of trials and terrors amidst the unforgiving wilds of northeastern Nigeria, through the forest and beyond; a place where her traumas are met with the blinkered judgement of a society in denial. How do we love in a world that has lost its moorings? How...

The High Road

Fri, 28 Oct 1988 00:11:35 +0300

Love and tragedy converge in a seaside town in The High Road, a newly reissued novel from Edna O'Brien, the author of Girl and "one of the most celebrated writers in the English language" (NPR's Weekend Edition)
This richly peopled, compellingly readable novel explores the many lives of women—as mystic, mother, daughter, and lover. There is Iris, with her "winsome wonsome" ways, no longer young; there is Charlotte, a troubled debutante who has fled from society; and there is the narrator, Anna, who feels that her emotional life has folded until she meets a young Spanish girl named Catalina.
Set in a seaside enclave on the Mediterranean coast, The High Road is a passionate account of lost love and the return to loving, where currents of regret and loneliness clash with a fiery instinct for survival.

Joyce's Women

Mon, 18 Apr 2022 22:25:08 +0300

I love fire. Fire is the colour of genius.
In this audacious new work, Edna O'Brien gives voice to the women who were central to the life of James Joyce.
'James Joyce had been my ultimate hero for sixty years, but to paint the canvas of his life was daunting. Therefore I decided to depict him as seen by the key figures in his life - Mother, Wife, Mistress of a fleeting moment, his patron Harriet Weaver and his beloved Daughter Lucia, of whom he said her mind was but a transparent leaf away from his.'
Written to celebrate the centenary of Ulysses, Joyce's Women premiered at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, in September 2022.