The Irish novelist, Edna O’Brien has died at the age of 93. She published novels, short stories, plays and biographies.Her novel Country Girls (1960) was banned in Ireland for its frank sexual references and portrayal of contemporary social issues. Other novels included Girls in Their Married Bliss (1964), August is a Wicked Month (1965) and A Pagan Place . Her memoir Country Girl was published in 2012. In 1980 she wrote a play Virginia (about Virginia Woolf) which was staged in Canada and London. Her last novel Girl (2019) was based on one of the victims of the abduction of a group of Nigerian school girls. She travelled twice to Nigeria twice to undertake research for this book. She also wrote a biography of James Joyce (1999) and a biography of Byron called Byron in Love (2009)
She received numerous awards and in 2017 was given the award of DBE – Dame of the Order of the British Empire for her services to literature.