President Michael D Higgins led tributes on Sunday night to Edna O’Brien, who he called his “dear friend” and “one of the outstanding writers of modern times”.
The author, who died in London after a long illness on Saturday aged 93, gained instant fame in 1960 with her acclaimed coming-of-age novel The Country Girls, whose fearless honesty scandalised Catholic Ireland and was banned by the censor. Her career spanned more than 60 years, with her final novel, Girl, published in 2019.
“Edna was a fearless teller of truths, a superb writer possessed of the moral courage to confront Irish society with realities long ignored and suppressed,” Mr Higgins said. “Through that deeply insightful work, rich in humanity, Edna O’Brien was one of the first writers to provide a true voice to the experiences of women in Ireland and played an important role in transforming the status of women.
[ Edna O’Brien obituary: flamboyant, fearless, and outspoken Irish writerOpens in new window ]
“While the beauty of her work was immediately recognised abroad, it is important to remember the hostile reaction it provoked among those who wished for the lived experience of women to remain far from the world of Irish literature, with her books shamefully banned upon their early publication,” the President said, recalling his delight at presenting her with Ireland’s highest cultural honour, the Torc of the Saoi of Aosdána, in 2015.
“Although I’ve known for a while I wouldn’t be seeing her again, I’m heartbroken to hear the news of Edna’s death,” Eimear McBride said. “Her words just burned through me, alive with feeling and beauty and want. To be a body, to be a woman, to suffer and to love, no one wrote of these experiences as she did. She wrote about the hard things honestly and humanely but, above all, beautifully – sometimes even transcendentally.”
“Thanks to Edna O’Brien, we – and the many writers who came later – had no scruples about writing about life and emotions as they really were. She was our Chekhov, our Alice Munro, our Annie Ernaux. I loved her writing. I loved her style, her dedication, her hard work, her genius. Her,” said Éilís Ní Dhuibhne.
[ Irish author Edna O’Brien has died aged 93Opens in new window ]
Joseph O’Connor said that “Edna’s work ended silences and broke open new ground. Generations of writers and readers loved her fearlessness and her clear sense of writerly vision and mission but also her remarkable storytelling and the grace of her sentences. We have lost the high queen of Irish fiction but her influence will long be felt and the work long loved.”
“She was entrancing: one of the warmest, sharpest-tongued, most companionable and funniest creatures it has been my good fortune to know,” John Banville said. “Her early books, so fresh, so direct, so finely wrought, were a revolution in Irish writing. In a darkening world she was a lovely light, and will remain so, unextinguished.”
[ Edna O’Brien: ‘If I don’t write, I might as well not live’Opens in new window ]
“Edna never left Ireland,” said Anne Enright. “Or she never left the Ireland of her childhood, which was always waiting to swamp her in memory and sensation. She could not live here either; the country was too cruel a place for a woman like her. Now, the bile is gone, the odium long spent; the country has changed to meet her. At long last, we can welcome her home. She has, she said, ‘a very lovely grave’ on a holy island on Lough Derg.”
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