2024-07-29 06:08:30
The Irish novelist, short story writer and playwright Edna O’Brien (Tuam Gréine, 1930) died last Sunday in London at the age of 93, as published by her editor Caroline Michel and the publisher Faber Books on social media: “She died peacefully on Saturday, July 27, after a long illness. “Our thoughts are with his family and friends, especially his sons Marcus and Carlo.”
Cruelty, adultery and circumcision, the “Byron in love” profiled by Edna O’Brien
O’Brien was to become a pharmacist, but the literary sting was already there. Edna O’Brien, the youngest of four children from a traditional family in the countryside of Catholic Ireland, was destined to live the life expected of women: a discreet job, marriage, motherhood, always quietly and with her mind put in the care of the family ahead of their wishes. However, when her father forced her to train in pharmacy, she had already decided to devote herself to writing. He had read James Joyce, and could not resist the temptation. It was more than a whim: it was a necessity.
She is backed by almost six decades of career, since she first started in 1960 Girls of the country to your latest one The girl, published in 2019. In these two novels you see the constants that inspired her work as they are always committed to denying the oppressive conditions of women and marginalized people in general. If her first work, which has a clear autobiographical background, gives information about the sentimental education of two Irish friends, their dream in the 1950s to escape from the Catholic boarding school to enjoy the pleasures of Dublin, her latest book focuses again on the struggle for the emancipation of women. , but in another place in the world: Nigeria, where she moved, when she was already in the eighties, to research the girls kidnapped by Boko Haram Islamists.
He had a long and fruitful career, with constant recognition and growing international prestige; In recent years he has been awarded the PEN/Nabokov Award, held by authors such as Philip Roth, Mario Vargas Llosa, Cynthia Ozick and Anne Carson; The David Cohen Prize, awarded by writers from the Anglo-Saxon world such as Doris Lessing, Julian Barnes, Hilary Mantel and her companion Colm Tóibín; the Prix Fémina spécial for all her work and the French Order of Arts and Letters. With more than forty books published, he nurtured the novel, the story, the essay, the memoirs, the play, the screenplay –Wild and dangerous (1972), the film with Elizabeth Taylor and Michael Caine –, children’s literature and poetry. His latest book is published in Spanish Byron in lovea biography of the romantic poet he first published in 2009.
His beginning, however, was not easy. He grew up in a small village, in a family with strong religious values, rich enough to have an employee to help with the farm work and humble enough that everyone had to work. His father’s alcohol problems were evident in his youth, causing instability and violence at home; The author remembers the peace she found in the moments when she and her mother were alone. She was educated with nuns, in a school that caused her massive rejection. All these experiences, covered by the convenient mask of fiction, are represented more or less in most of his works, starting with Girls of the country.
The husband jealous of his writing
This beginning has its history. O’Brien was interning at the pharmacy when she met her future husband, the writer Ernest Gébler. It was the fifties and his family did not accept the marriage: he was divorced and they had a son from his previous relationship. Despite this, they married and settled in London, where they had two children. This move, which at first meant liberation for her, who was finally able to separate herself from the fixed morality of Ireland at the time, complicated things for her when the couple broke up. It was precisely the trigger that jumped into literature: after reading Girls of the country, a novel written in three weeks, in a state of grace, as a result of a proposal from the publisher she was working for at the time, her husband told her: “You know how to write, I will never forgive you ,” she recounts in her memoirs. Despite having more experience than her, his wife’s control and stubbornness did not match him.
She went through a complicated divorce, which sent her into depression. Raised under the conviction that marriage was for life, she found herself in England, a divorced mother with two small children. He did not have the support of his family, who did not view his literary quest favorably either: Girls of the country, which told of the rebellion of young women against strict Catholicism, caused an uproar in Ireland. In his home, specimens were burned, initiated by the priest.
The abuse reporter
Fortunately, it was not like that everywhere. Writing in English opened the door to other more modern countries, such as the United Kingdom or the United States, where its popularity was increasing. Writing saved her in very bad times, she published constantly and, perhaps more importantly, she lived with the rigors of everything that came her way. The parties at his London home became famous: absolutely swinging sixties, he rubbed shoulders with personalities such as Paul McCartney, Jane Fonda, Marlon Brando and Judy Garland, at a time when “celebrities weren’t so famous and didn’t go around with supposed cohorts,” as he recalls in his memoirs. On a visit to the United States, he had dinner at the White House, between Hillary Clinton and Jack Nicholson. He also treated Philip Roth, who praised his work; They both had a lot of respect for each other.
Her novels focus on themes of the female universe that are often silenced: she was a pioneer in tackling friendship between girls, unapologetic rejection of religion, sexual freedom, the wreck of marriage (with the ironic title Happily married girlsfrom 1964, which closes the trilogy Girls of the country) or abuse of the Church (a pagan place, from 1970, a masterful monologue in the second person about a priest who seduces a girl and the traumas associated with this). Many of the settings and characters relate to the Irish countryside of his youth, but over the years he has broadened his territory and interests: in addition to the aforementioned research in Nigeria, he has previously signed The little red chairs (2015), in which the Srebrenica genocide is linked to the situation of immigrants in the 21st century. This novel, one of her best works, tells the journey of a middle-aged Irish woman who, after falling in love with the wrong person, must start from scratch and find a new meaning for “home”.
Language was born at home
She knew a lot about painful defeat and new beginnings; but she also knew how to take advantage of opportunities, the pressure of the moment and keep the best around her. She traveled, she tried, she took a stand on the Northern Ireland conflict or women’s rights. She kept an open mind, embraced change, which allowed her to connect with the younger generations. Once, a reader asked her: “Dear lady, please write a book for men about love, because they don’t understand it like women.” She knew how to give voice to many women, to suppress fear, with the tools of great literature, where she was becoming more ambitious.
“My commitment was complete, because for every writer the love of the language begins in that place called ‘home'” he wrote in his memoirs, a country girl (2921), which represents the precious legacy of an extraordinary writer and a woman who made her way without anyone’s help. His dedication, elegance and talent will always be alive in his work.
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