@faberbooks: ‘There’s no one like Edna O’Brien’ Anne Enright ‘Our oracle’ Patricia Lockwood ‘A beacon’ Megan Nolan ‘Brilliant and brave’ Ann Patchett ‘Her words just burned through me’ Eimear McBride ‘Glittering’ Colm Tóibín The Country Girls. The Lonely Girl. Girls in Their Married Bliss. Edna O’Brien’s trilogy revolutionised Irish literature in the 1960s. Banned by the authorities as ‘indecent’, burned by the clergy and notorious for their frank portrayal of sexual desire: scandal turned to fame, and made this glorious coming-of-age tale an instant classic. Caithleen ‘Kate’ Brady and Bridget ‘Baba’ Brennan are growing up in a repressive Irish village. Kate is a romantic, looking for love; Baba is a reckless survivor. After being expelled from convent school, they dream of the bright lights of Dublin – and are rewarded with bad luck and bad sex; marry for the wrong reasons; but continue to fight the expectations forced upon ‘girls’ of every era to become brave new women.

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Wednesday 05 August 2026 12:18:35 GMT