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Summary
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.’ Anne Enright
‘Surprising and beautiful and courageous .. A beacon.‘ Megan Nolan
‘Brilliant and brave.’ Ann Patchett
‘Glittering energy.’ Colm Tóibín
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.
EdnaO'Brien
Edna O’Brien wrote more than twenty celebrated works of fiction, including her classic The Country Girls trilogy, as well as plays and four works of non-fiction, which have been translated into over thirty languages. Her final novel Girl was awarded the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year in 2020. She was the recipient of many honours, including the Irish…
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