Irish author Edna O’Brien dies aged 93

After early novels that won international acclaim but were banned at home, the Irish author had a prolific career lasting more than half a century

The Irish writer Edna O’Brien, who explored the complications and contradictions of women’s lives in a literary career lasting more than half a century, has died aged 93 after a long illness, her agent has announced.

In a series of novels beginning with The Country Girls that were at first banned in Ireland but feted abroad, O’Brien gave voice to women struggling with the oppressive and hypocritical expectations of rural life. Her focus widened in later works such as House of Splendid Isolation and The Little Red Chairs, but always maintained the keen intelligence and daring that made Philip Roth once hail her as “the most gifted woman now writing fiction in English”.