The Irish author talks about the scandal her books caused.
For more than four decades, Edna O’Brien has been a leading figure in Irish literature. Her first novel, The Country Girls, created a scandal when it was published in 1960. It dealt honestly and vividly with the lives of two girls, Caithleen and Baba, becoming women in the authoritarian society of rural Ireland.
It was banned by the Censorship Board and copies were burned by the curate in her family’s local church in County Clare. But the novel and the two successive volumes which form the ‘Country Girl’s trilogy’ became best-selling, highly regarded and much loved classics.
Jane talks to Edna O’Brien about the novels that began her literary career and earned her a reputation as a scandalous woman.
Edna O’Brien’s ‘Country Girls Trilogy’ has been reissued by Phoenix paperbacks. The Country Girls, ISBN-13: 978-0752881164 Girl with Green Eyes, ISBN-13: 978-0753821374 Girls in their Married Bliss, ISBN-13: 978-0753821381
