I love fire. Fire is the colour of genius.In this audacious new work, Edna O'Brien gives voice to the women who were central to the life of James Joyce.'James Joyce had been my ultimate hero for sixty years, but to paint the canvas of his life was daunting. Therefore I decided to depict him as seen by the key figures in his life - Mother, Wife, Mistress of a fleeting moment, his patron Harriet Weaver and his beloved Daughter Lucia, of whom he said her mind was but a transparent leaf away from his.'Written to celebrate the centenary of Ulysses , Joyce's Women premiered at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, in September 2022.
Edna O. Brien Book order







- 2022
- 2020
James and Nora
- 80 pages
- 3 hours of reading
A portrait of the relationship between James Joyce and Nora Barnacle
- 2019
Faber Stories showcases a collection of individual volumes featuring renowned short story writers, each bringing their unique genres and styles to the forefront. This series highlights the artistry and diversity of contemporary storytelling, offering readers a rich tapestry of narratives crafted by masters of the form.
- 2019
Girl
- 240 pages
- 9 hours of reading
Longlisted for the 2020 Women's Prize for Fiction Longlisted for the 2020 Orwell Prize for Political Fiction A Times, Evening Standard and Financial Times Book of the Year I was a girl once, but not any more . . . A young woman, barely more than a girl herself, must learn to survive with a child of her own, in a world which seems entirely consumed by madness. As she navigates a landscape of terrors and trials, can she find a place of safety within a society blinkered by mistrust and denial? 'Astonishing.' New Statesman 'Raw and transfixing.' Observer 'Miraculous . . . Extraordinary.' Mail on Sunday 'A masterpiece.' Irish Independent 'Mesmerising.' Sunday Times 'Devastating and moving.' Daily Telegraph
- 2019
Byron in love
- 240 pages
- 9 hours of reading
The nobility, arrogance and sheer theatre of Byron's life.
- 2017
Tales for the Telling
- 176 pages
- 7 hours of reading
Originally published: Great Britain: Pavilion Books Ltd. in association with Michael Joseph Ltd., 1986.
- 2017
"This omnibus edition, with a new epilogue by the author, was originally published in 1986 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux as The country girls trilogy and epilogue."--Title page verso.
- 2015
The Little Red Chairs
- 299 pages
- 11 hours of reading
The much-anticipated new novel from the literary world's master of storytelling, Edna O'Brien. A woman discovers that the foreigner she thinks will redeem her life is a notorious war criminal. Vlad, a stranger from Eastern Europe masquerading as a healer, settles in a small Irish village where the locals fall under his spell. One woman, Fidelma McBride, becomes so enamored that she begs him for a child. All that world is shattered when Vlad is arrested, and his identity as a war criminal is revealed. Fidelma, disgraced, flees to England and seeks work among the other migrants displaced by wars and persecution. But it is not until she confronts him-her nemesis-at the tribunal in The Hague, that her physical and emotional journey reaches its breathtaking climax. The Little Red Chairs is a book about love, and the endless search for it. It is also a book about mankind's fascination with evil, and how long, how crooked, is the road towards Home.
- 2014
Edna O'Brien's classic, rocket of a novel, 'Night', is narrated by one of her most memorably, unhinged characters, Mary Hooligan. Lying on a four-poster bed, unable to sleep, she recounts (mis)adventures, courtships, and sexual encounters of the most transgressive kind, in a narrative voice of blistering originality.
- 2012
Country Girl
- 352 pages
- 13 hours of reading
I thought of life's many bounties, to have known the extremities of joy and sorrow, love, success and failure, fame and slaughter, to have read in the newspapers that as a writer I was past my sell-by date, yet regardless, to go on writing and reading, to be lucky enough to live in these two intensities that have buttressed my whole life.

