Girl

I was a girl once, but not anymore.

So begins Girl, Edna O'Brien's harrowing portrayal of the young women abducted by Boko Haram. Set in the deep countryside of northeast Nigeria, this is a brutal story of incarceration, horror, and hunger; a hair-raising escape into the manifold terrors of the forest; and a descent into the labyrinthine bureaucracy and hostility awaiting a victim who returns home with a child blighted by enemy blood. From one of the century's greatest living authors, Girl is an unforgettable story of one victim's astonishing survival, and her unflinching faith in the redemption of the human heart. (From MacMillan)

Girl is available in Oct. 2019.

O'Brien published her first novel, The Country Girls, in 1960. Her most recent books include The Little Red Chairs and The Light of Evening. She was awarded the PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature in 2018.

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Interviews with Edna O'Brien

Writers and Company54:00Writer Edna O'Brien interview (2009 Encore)

A conversation with one of Ireland's classic writers Edna O'Brien about her "Country Girls" trilogy, her latest novel about mothers and daughters, and her portrait of the Romantic poet Lord Byron.

Sunday Edition39:09How Ireland creates writers, and Irish writers created Ireland

From Jonathan Swift and Oscar Wilde to Edna O’Brien and John Banville, the Irish are a literary people. Poets like William Butler Yeats articulated revolutionary dreams of Irish statehood and inspired the romantic visions behind the 1916 Easter Rising. Declan Kiberd is Ireland’s most renowned cultural and literary critic. His latest book is called After Ireland: Writing the Nation from Beckett to the Present.

Other books by Edna O'Brien