Edna O'Brien

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Edna O'Brien (2016)

Dame Edna O'Brien DBE (born December 15, 1930 in Tuamgraney , County Clare ) is an Irish writer.

Life

Edna O'Brien, daughter of Michael and Lena O'Brien, attended the National School in Scarriff , the Convent of Mercy in Loughrea and the Pharmaceutical College in Dublin . She only worked as a pharmacist for a short time . In 1951 she married Ernest Gébler, a Czech-Irish writer, with whom she moved to London in 1959. The marriage ended in divorce in 1967. You have two children; one son is the writer Carlo Gébler. O'Brien is a member of Aosdána .

As a screenwriter, she worked on a number of film and television adaptations of her own books from the 1960s to the 1980s.

reception

O'Brien's first novel was The Country Girls , 1960 (German: Die fifteen year olds , 1961). This book and two sequels, The Lonely Girl (1962), and Girls in Their Married Bliss (1964) ,. In them she criticized the structures that were oppressive to women in her family but also in Ireland as a whole. Women in post-war Ireland were not allowed to express negative feelings about abuse or family unhappiness. The women had to keep the shop going while the men helplessly drank . In all of this women had to be silent. O'Brien's books, which she wrote in England, were enthusiastically received by young women in England. In Ireland, they met with vehement criticism from the predominantly male authorities. The mother was attacked because of her daughter's books. The archbishop and government minister condemned the books. The books were even burned in public.

Northern Irish writer Eimear McBride is known to have been influenced by her work .

O'Brien and her works have received numerous awards, including an Irish Book Award in 2012 for her autobiography Country Girl . In 2018 she received the US $ 50,000 PEN / Nabokov Award for her life's work and in 2019 the £ 40,000 David Cohen Prize , also for her life's work. In 2020, her Roman Girl received the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year Award .

In April 2018, O'Brien was made an honorary Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire . She has been an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters since 1987 .

Works

Novels

The Country Girls Trilogy and Epilogue (1986)
  • 1960 The Country Girls
    • The fifteen year olds, German by Jeanie Ebner; Rütten & Loening, Hamburg 1961; NA 2018 under the same title, German by Stefanie Jacobs; Atlantik, Hamburg 2018. ISBN 978-3-455-00450-2
  • 1962 The Lonely Girl (also published under the title Girl with Green Eyes )
  • 1964 Girls in Their Married Bliss
    • Girl in marriage happiness, dt. Margaret Carroux, Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1969. ISBN 3-499-11520-4
  • 1965 August Is a Wicked Month
    • The vicious month, German by Inge Wiskott; Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1967.
  • 1966 Casualties of Peace
    • Suddenly in the most beautiful peace, German from Margaret Carroux; Diogenes, Zurich 1974. ISBN 3-257-01516-X
  • 1970 A Pagan Place
  • 1971 Zee & Co.
  • 1972 Night
  • 1977 Johnny I Hardly Knew You
    • I hardly knew him, from Margaret Carroux; Goverts, Frankfurt am Main 1978. ISBN 3-7740-0486-2
    • also as: Johnny, I hardly knew you, same translation; Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1980. ISBN 3-596-22473-X
  • 1988 The High Road
  • 1992 Time and Tide
  • 1994 House of Splendid Isolation
    • The lonely house, German by Irmela Erckenbrecht; Hoffmann and Campe, Hamburg 1996. ISBN 3-455-05722-5
  • 1996 Down by the River
  • 1999 Wild Decembers
    • The rough country, German by Kathrin Razum; Hoffmann and Campe, Hamburg 2001. ISBN 3-455-05726-8
  • 2002 In the Forest
    • In the forest, German by Kathrin Razum; Hoffmann and Campe, Hamburg 2003. ISBN 3-455-05727-6
  • 2006 The Light of Evening
  • 2015 The Little Red Chairs
  • 2019 girl

stories

  • 1968 The Love Object and Other Stories
  • 1974 A Scandalous Woman and Other Stories
  • 1978 Mrs Reinhardt and Other Stories
    • Mistress Reinhardt dreams of number ten, German of Hannelore Neves; Ehrenwirth, Munich 1979. ISBN 3-431-02184-0
  • 1979 Some Irish Loving
  • 1982 Returning
  • 1985 A Fanatic Heart
  • 1990 Lantern Slides
  • 2011 Saints and Sinners
  • 2013 The Love Object: Selected Stories

Plays

  • 1962 A Cheap Bunch of Nice Flowers
  • 1972 A Pagan Place
  • 1974 The Gathering
  • 1980 Virginia
  • 1987 Madame Bovary (adaptation)
  • 1999 Our Father
  • 2003 Iphigenia (adaptation)
  • 2008 triptych
  • 2009 Haunted
    • Heimgesucht, German by Maria Harpner and Anatol Preissler; Sales office and Verl. Dt. Stage writer and stage composer, Norderstedt 2010.

Non-fiction

  • 1976 Mother Ireland
  • 1999 James Joyce (biography)
    • James Joyce, German Holger Fließbach and Christoph Nettersheim; Claassen, Munich 2004. ISBN 3-546-00224-5
  • 2009 Byron in Love (biography)
  • 2012 Country Girl (autobiography)

Poetry

  • 1989 On the Bone

Scripts

  • The Wedding Dress (episode of ITV Television Playhouse / UK 1963; directed by John McGrath )
  • Three-Piece Suit (episode of the television series Love Story ; UK 1964)
  • The Wooing of Miss Watson (episode of the television series Love Story ; UK 1964)
  • Give My Love to the Pilchards (episode of the TV series Love Story , UK 1964; Director: John Nelson-Burton)
  • The Keys of the Café (episode of the TV series Armchair Theater / UK 1965; Director: Patrick Dromgoole)
  • A Cheap Bunch of Nice Flowers (episode of the Festival TV series / UK 1965; directed by George Bloomfield)
  • I Was Happy Here (Film / UK 1966; Director: Desmond Davis / German Here I Was Happy)
  • Which of These Two Ladies Is He Married To? (Episode from the TV series Half Hour Story / UK 1967 directed by Alan Clarke)
  • Nothing's Ever Over (episode of the TV series Half Hour Story / UK 1969 directed by Alan Clarke)
  • Three Into Two Won't Go (Film / UK 1969; Director: Peter Hall / German 2 through 3 does not work )
  • Zee and Co. (Film / USA 1972; Brian G. Hutton / Ger. X, Y and Zee )
  • They should have come in the summer (TV film / D 1972, director: Hans Bachmüller)
  • Over (episode of the TV series Then and Now / UK 1973 directed by Robert Knights)
  • Mrs Reinhardt (TV film / UK 1981 directed by Piers Haggard)
  • Julia (part of the episode film Love / UK 1982, directed by Mai Zetterling )
  • The Country Girls (TV film / UK 1984 directed by Desmond Davis)
  • Wild Decembers (TV film / UK 2009 directed by Anthony Byrne)

Film adaptations

  • Girl With Green Eyes (Film / UK 1964, directed by Desmond Davis / Ger. The First Night )
  • Mrs Reinhardt (TV film / UK 1981 directed by Piers Haggard)
  • The Country Girls (TV film / UK 1984 directed by Desmond Davis)
  • Wild Decembers (TV film / UK 2009 directed by Anthony Byrne)

literature

  • Grace Eckley: Edna O'Brien . University Press, Lewisburg 1974, ISBN 0-8387-7838-0 .
  • Amanda Greenwood: Edna O'Brien . Northcote House Publ., Tavistock 2003, ISBN 0-7463-0967-8 .
  • Kathryn Laing: Edna O'Brien. New critical perspectives . Carysfort Press, Dublin 2006, ISBN 1-904505-20-1 .
  • Ellen R. Malenas: An imagined Irish childhood. Representations of female identity formation and development in the novels of Kate O'Brien , Maura Laverty , and Edna O'Brien . Dissertation, Trinity College, Dublin 1998.
  • Helen Thompson: The role of Irish women in the writings of Edna O'Brien. Mothering the continuation of the Irish nation . Mellen Press, Lewiston, NY 2010, ISBN 978-0-7734-3672-5 .
  • O'Brien, Edna , in: Eberhard Kreutzer, Ansgar Nünning (eds.): Metzler Lexicon of English-speaking authors . Stuttgart: Metzler, 2002, p. 431f.

Web links

supporting documents

  1. ↑ Peter Lewis, Review of Country Girl in Daily Mail October 12, 2012. Paying the price for passion. Accessed April 4, 2020.
  2. ↑ Die Welt , Saturday April 4th. "Words are my tormentors and my best friends at the same time." Edna O'Brien was frowned upon in her native Ireland for a long time. A conversation about the cruelties of life, the depths of writing and her friend Philip Roth .
  3. ^ In praise of Edna O'Brien, by Eimear McBride , The Irish Times, March 7, 2015
  4. ↑ Alison Flood: Irish novelist Edna O'Brien wins PEN / Nabokov lifetime award , The Guardian , February 7, 2018, accessed February 9, 2018
  5. ↑ David Cohen Prize: 2019 Edna O'Brien , accessed January 10, 2020
  6. ↑ Arise Dame Edna: Irish author Edna O'Brien is made a DBE , The Irish Times, published and accessed on April 10, 2018
  7. ↑ Honorary Members: Edna O'Brien. American Academy of Arts and Letters, accessed March 18, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME O'Brien, Edna
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Irish writer
DATE OF BIRTH December 15, 1930
PLACE OF BIRTH Tuamgraney , County Clare