Edna O'Brien's beloved classics plunge us into the lives and loves of two girls in rural 1950s Ireland (with a new foreword by Eimear McBride).

'The taboo-breaking, the fabulous prose - there's no one like Edna O'Brien ... Beautiful.' Anne Enright

'Novels of heart-breaking empathy, rigorous honesty and peerless beauty.' Eimear McBride

'Brilliant and brave.' Ann Patchett

'A treasure.' New York Times

ONE OF THE BBC'S '100 NOVELS THAT SHAPED OUR WORLD'

Caithleen 'Kate' Brady and Bridget 'Baba' Brennan are growing up in a repressive Irish village after World War II. Kate is a romantic, looking for love; Baba is a reckless survivor. After being expelled from convent school, they dream of the bright lights of Dublin - and are rewarded with bad luck and bad sex; marry for the wrong reasons; but continue to fight the expectations forced upon 'girls' of every era to become brave new women.

Edna O'Brien's debut novels revolutionised Irish literature in the 1960s. Banned by the authorities as 'indecent' and burned by the clergy, they were notorious for their frank portrayal of sexual desire: but scandal turned to fame, and made this glorious coming-of-age tale an instant classic that inspires and delights readers to this day.

'Buoyantly youthful ... With all the freshness in the world.' Sunday Times

'An excellent and highly unusual blend of bawdiness and innocence.' Evening Standard

'O'Brien simply offers her characters and they come to us living.' V.S. Naipaul

'A natural writer ... [such] unphoney charm and unlaborious originality.' Kingsley Amis

'One of the greatest Irish writers, of this or any era.' Sunday Independent

'One of our bravest and best novelists' Irish Times

'A literary great.' Times

Edna O'Brien's 'fabulous' (Anne Enright) beloved classics plunge us into the lives and loves of two girls in rural 1950s Ireland - with a new foreword by Eimear McBride.

About the Author

Edna O'Brien has written more than twenty works of fiction. She is the recipient of many awards, including the Irish PEN Lifetime Achievement Award, the American National Arts Gold Medal, the Frank O'Connor Prize and the PEN/Nabokov Award For Achievement in International Literature. Born and raised in the west of Ireland, she has lived in London for many years. Her new novel, Girl, was published by Faber in September 2019.

Eimear McBride is the author of two novels: The Lesser Bohemians (James Tait Black Memorial Prize) and A Girl is a Half-formed Thing (Bailey's Women's Prize for Fiction, Irish Novel of the Year, the Goldsmiths Prize, and others). She was the inaugural creative fellow at the Beckett Research Centre, University of Reading and occasionally writes for the Guardian, TLS, New Statesman and the Irish Times.

Book Information
ISBN 9780571352906
Author Edna O'Brien
Format Paperback
Page Count 704
Imprint Faber & Faber
Publisher Faber & Faber
Weight(grams) 573g
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 129mm * 42mm