#edna-obrien — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #edna-obrien, aggregated by home.social.
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Writing Our Mothers
Archive on 4‘Mothers have such a weight of idealisation and expectation landed upon their bodies and their minds and what women writers can do is to take that apart and explore
its underbelly,’ says feminist writer Jacqueline Rose.Whether worshipped or vilified, treated as lifetime confidantes or rarely trusted, the mothers we meet when we write them are re-inventions. Some may be closer to the
truth than others. Many of them will have roots in the life experiences of the daughter-writer. Virginia Woolf, who lost her mother at the age of 13, said she was obsessed with writing her mother. Eventually she also argued that it was ‘the occupation of the woman writer to kill’ what she called ‘The Angel in the House’ – the perfect, self-sacrificing mother – who may well have been her own maternal influence.Drawing on interviews with Maya Angelou, we hear how for her to write her mother was to ‘write about a hurricane in its perfect power’. She describes how the influence of a mother who ‘abandoned’ her as a child forced her most urgent examinations of class, race and, importantly love. In another frank interview with Marguerite Duras from 1968, she describes writing as a search for connection with her raging and ‘mad’ mother. For Sylvia Plath, the process of writing about becoming a mother herself in the 1950s produced work of a psychic intensity rarely seen before.
What the archive ultimately reveals is that a mother, whether present or absent, loving or cruel, might be as formative an influence on a writer’s work, as in life. ‘When I read about motherhood, I want to be shaken loose from whatever limitations I have when I think about what that means,’ says the writer Siri Hustvedt.
With contributions from Susie Orbach, Jacqueline Rose, Kit de Waal and Siri Hustvedt, and narration from Amaka Okafor.
Produced by Sarah Cuddon
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4Archive sources:
Desert Island Discs with Arundhati Roy (2017)
A Chance to Meet ... Edna O'Brien (1971)
Sylvia Plath, Peter Orr interview (1962)
Audre Lorde, Pacifica Radio Archives and Academy of American Poets www.poets.org
Maya Angelou, BBC News (1985)
Jeannette Winterson, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (BBC, 1990) and Face To Face (BBC, 1994)
Marguerite Duras, Worn Out With Desire To Write (1985)
Toni Morrison, Brief Encounters (BBC, 2001)
Jackie Kay, Book of the Week (The Waters Company for BBC R4, 2015)
Elena Ferrante, Lying Lives of Adults (BBC, 2020)
Available now57 minutes
#ArundhatiRoy #EdnaOBrien
#SylviaPlath #AudreLorde
#MayaAngelou #JeannetteWinterson
#MargueriteDuras #ToniMorrison
#JackieKay #ElenaFerrante -
Writing Our Mothers
Archive on 4‘Mothers have such a weight of idealisation and expectation landed upon their bodies and their minds and what women writers can do is to take that apart and explore
its underbelly,’ says feminist writer Jacqueline Rose.Whether worshipped or vilified, treated as lifetime confidantes or rarely trusted, the mothers we meet when we write them are re-inventions. Some may be closer to the
truth than others. Many of them will have roots in the life experiences of the daughter-writer. Virginia Woolf, who lost her mother at the age of 13, said she was obsessed with writing her mother. Eventually she also argued that it was ‘the occupation of the woman writer to kill’ what she called ‘The Angel in the House’ – the perfect, self-sacrificing mother – who may well have been her own maternal influence.Drawing on interviews with Maya Angelou, we hear how for her to write her mother was to ‘write about a hurricane in its perfect power’. She describes how the influence of a mother who ‘abandoned’ her as a child forced her most urgent examinations of class, race and, importantly love. In another frank interview with Marguerite Duras from 1968, she describes writing as a search for connection with her raging and ‘mad’ mother. For Sylvia Plath, the process of writing about becoming a mother herself in the 1950s produced work of a psychic intensity rarely seen before.
What the archive ultimately reveals is that a mother, whether present or absent, loving or cruel, might be as formative an influence on a writer’s work, as in life. ‘When I read about motherhood, I want to be shaken loose from whatever limitations I have when I think about what that means,’ says the writer Siri Hustvedt.
With contributions from Susie Orbach, Jacqueline Rose, Kit de Waal and Siri Hustvedt, and narration from Amaka Okafor.
Produced by Sarah Cuddon
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4Archive sources:
Desert Island Discs with Arundhati Roy (2017)
A Chance to Meet ... Edna O'Brien (1971)
Sylvia Plath, Peter Orr interview (1962)
Audre Lorde, Pacifica Radio Archives and Academy of American Poets www.poets.org
Maya Angelou, BBC News (1985)
Jeannette Winterson, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (BBC, 1990) and Face To Face (BBC, 1994)
Marguerite Duras, Worn Out With Desire To Write (1985)
Toni Morrison, Brief Encounters (BBC, 2001)
Jackie Kay, Book of the Week (The Waters Company for BBC R4, 2015)
Elena Ferrante, Lying Lives of Adults (BBC, 2020)
Available now57 minutes
#ArundhatiRoy #EdnaOBrien
#SylviaPlath #AudreLorde
#MayaAngelou #JeannetteWinterson
#MargueriteDuras #ToniMorrison
#JackieKay #ElenaFerrante -
Girl, by Edna O’Brien
Irish novelist Edna O’Brien passed away two years ago. When I read of her death I didn’t know anything about her writing except that her first novel, Country Girls, had been banned in Ireland. That made me decide to read some of her work. As it happens the first book by her that I came across was the last she wrote, in 2019, which I bought over a year ago and has been sitting on my coffee table ever since. I started reading it this evening and found it so compelling that I couldn’t put it down until I had finished it.
Girl is set in Nigeria and is told in the voice of Maryam, a young girl who is kidnapped, along with her schoolmates, by the jihadists of Boko Haram. Maryam and the other schoolgirls are subjected to appaling horror and degradation described in unflinching detail. Eventually Maryam is given as a prize to a Boko Haram soldier Mahmoud, and bears his baby (simply called Babby). Maryam escapes with Babby with another girl, and drifts into and out of danger. Upon eventually returning home she is punished by her family, but the book ends on an optimistic note as she finds sanctuary.
The story is grim but O’Brien clearly had a great gift for storytelling, with subtle shifts in style as Maryam’s mental state shifts between horror, to relief, to sad reminiscence of happier times. In her acknowledgements at the end, the author explains that Maryam’s tale is actually a synthesis of accounts of various ordeals experienced by real-life women, to whom she spoke to in two visits to Nigeria, where she also learned something of the linguistic mannerisms of Maryam’s people. It is quite an achievement for an Irish woman in her late eighties to find a convincing voice for a young Nigerian girl subjected to pains surely beyond imagination. I think it’s a brilliantly moving book.
Girl has been criticised for O’Brien’s appropriation of the voice of a different culture, which (it has been claimed) makes it feel like an artificial exercise. A book of this kind by a Nigerian author would no doubt be more “authentic” in many important respects, but what I took from it (apart from the beautiful prose) is the emotional authenticity of the emotional tone and her desire to celebrate the strength of the many women whose struggles come together in the story of Maryam. The violent oppression of women is widespread in this world, so Maryam is a universal figure – a survivor.
#BokoHaram #EdnaOBrien #Girl -
Girl, by Edna O’Brien
Irish novelist Edna O’Brien passed away two years ago. When I read of her death I didn’t know anything about her writing except that her first novel, Country Girls, had been banned in Ireland. That made me decide to read some of her work. As it happens the first book by her that I came across was the last she wrote, in 2019, which I bought over a year ago and has been sitting on my coffee table ever since. I started reading it this evening and found it so compelling that I couldn’t put it down until I had finished it.
Girl is set in Nigeria and is told in the voice of Maryam, a young girl who is kidnapped, along with her schoolmates, by the jihadists of Boko Haram. Maryam and the other schoolgirls are subjected to appaling horror and degradation described in unflinching detail. Eventually Maryam is given as a prize to a Boko Haram soldier Mahmoud, and bears his baby (simply called Babby). Maryam escapes with Babby with another girl, and drifts into and out of danger. Upon eventually returning home she is punished by her family, but the book ends on an optimistic note as she finds sanctuary.
The story is grim but O’Brien clearly had a great gift for storytelling, with subtle shifts in style as Maryam’s mental state shifts between horror, to relief, to sad reminiscence of happier times. In her acknowledgements at the end, the author explains that Maryam’s tale is actually a synthesis of accounts of various ordeals experienced by real-life women, to whom she spoke to in two visits to Nigeria, where she also learned something of the linguistic mannerisms of Maryam’s people. It is quite an achievement for an Irish woman in her late eighties to find a convincing voice for a young Nigerian girl subjected to pains surely beyond imagination. I think it’s a brilliantly moving book.
Girl has been criticised for O’Brien’s appropriation of the voice of a different culture, which (it has been claimed) makes it feel like an artificial exercise. A book of this kind by a Nigerian author would no doubt be more “authentic” in many important respects, but what I took from it (apart from the beautiful prose) is the emotional authenticity of the emotional tone and her desire to celebrate the strength of the many women whose struggles come together in the story of Maryam. The violent oppression of women is widespread in this world, so Maryam is a universal figure – a survivor.
#BokoHaram #EdnaOBrien #Girl -
Blue Road – The Edna O’Brien Story gets a release date. Details here https://bit.ly/4kPRm4Z
#BlueRoadTheEdnaOBrienStrory #film #documentary #EdnaOBrien #Ireland #author #writer #TheCountryGirls #book #SinéadOShea
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Blue Road – The Edna O’Brien Story gets a release date. Details here https://bit.ly/4kPRm4Z
#BlueRoadTheEdnaOBrienStrory #film #documentary #EdnaOBrien #Ireland #author #writer #TheCountryGirls #book #SinéadOShea
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@ChrisMayLA6 @bookstodon my favourite thing atm is choosing an author I’ve read a bit of, and finding or setting up a reading challenge on @thestorygraph of all their work, so I can (re-)read everything in order. Currently doing this with #ASByatt, #EdnaOBrien, #JackKerouac and #DavidFosterWallace.
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August goes by wickedly fast...
Remembering the uncompromising Edna O'Brien (1930-2024) -
August goes by wickedly fast...
Remembering the uncompromising Edna O'Brien (1930-2024) -
We use "warmth" but not "coolth" – at least, not usually. New post on a rare word:
https://stancarey.wordpress.com/2024/08/16/birth-of-the-coolth/
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We use "warmth" but not "coolth" – at least, not usually. New post on a rare word:
https://stancarey.wordpress.com/2024/08/16/birth-of-the-coolth/
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"We say to ourselves: 'Where will it all lead us to?' and coax the fates to take us on to disaster." —Edna O'Brien
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"We say to ourselves: 'Where will it all lead us to?' and coax the fates to take us on to disaster." —Edna O'Brien
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"She insisted that literature was a precursor to sin and damnation, whereas I believed it was the only alchemy that there was."
—Edna O'Brien, Saints and Sinners, 2011
#EdnaOBrien #IrishLiterature #IrishBooks #writing #words #literature
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"She insisted that literature was a precursor to sin and damnation, whereas I believed it was the only alchemy that there was."
—Edna O'Brien, Saints and Sinners, 2011
#EdnaOBrien #IrishLiterature #IrishBooks #writing #words #literature
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"I'm not a bad match," he said. "I've a pump in the yard, a bull and a brother a priest. What more could a woman want?"
—Edna O'Brien, Girl with Green Eyes (aka The Lonely Girl), 1962
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"I'm not a bad match," he said. "I've a pump in the yard, a bull and a brother a priest. What more could a woman want?"
—Edna O'Brien, Girl with Green Eyes (aka The Lonely Girl), 1962
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Sad to hear that Edna O'Brien has died. What an amazing body of work she leaves, and what a life she had. The controversy over her early books had ebbed by the time I started reading her, but the elegance of her writing and the power of her stories remained, and remains, unaltered
#EdnaOBrien #IrishLiterature #IrishBooks #Ireland #books #writing
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Sad to hear that Edna O'Brien has died. What an amazing body of work she leaves, and what a life she had. The controversy over her early books had ebbed by the time I started reading her, but the elegance of her writing and the power of her stories remained, and remains, unaltered
#EdnaOBrien #IrishLiterature #IrishBooks #Ireland #books #writing
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Edna O'Brien, Irish literary giant who wrote 'The Country Girls,' dies at 93
'The vitality of her prose was a mirror of her zest for life'
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Edna O'Brien, Irish literary giant who wrote 'The Country Girls,' dies at 93
'The vitality of her prose was a mirror of her zest for life'
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CW: Death of a public figure
I just heard this evening about the death of Edna O'Brien. An amazing person, author, figure - so often standing against and challenging so much of Ireland's establishment and powerful interests at a time when, for most people, that was impossible. RIP.
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CW: Death of a public figure
I just heard this evening about the death of Edna O'Brien. An amazing person, author, figure - so often standing against and challenging so much of Ireland's establishment and powerful interests at a time when, for most people, that was impossible. RIP.
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#EdnaOBrien ist gestorben. Sie wurde 93 Jahre alt. Das ist ein schöner Nachruf auf sie und ihr außerordentliches Werk:
#Literatur #literature #rip #bookstodon #womenwriters #IrishLiterature
https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/2024/07/28/irish-author-edna-obrien-has-died-aged-93/ -
#EdnaOBrien ist gestorben. Sie wurde 93 Jahre alt. Das ist ein schöner Nachruf auf sie und ihr außerordentliches Werk:
#Literatur #literature #rip #bookstodon #womenwriters #IrishLiterature
https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/2024/07/28/irish-author-edna-obrien-has-died-aged-93/ -
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
#RitaTushingham, #PeterFinch and a stellar debut from scene stealing #LynnRedgrave. Based on an #EdnaOBrien novel
#GirlwithGreenEyes (1964) - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058142/
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CW: #streetsofdublin #streetart #dublin
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Profi wneud dolen o app #StoryGraph - ydy hyn yn gweithio?
#EdnaOBrien - Johnny I Hardly Knew You
https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/e98c440b-eb4d-4669-92b6-eca4f9200060 #DarllenNawr
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“Writing and reading … those two intensities that have buttressed my whole life.” Edna O’Brien, born #OTD in 1930 #EdnaOBrien #writing #reading
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“Writing and reading … those two intensities that have buttressed my whole life.” Edna O’Brien, born #OTD in 1930 #EdnaOBrien #writing #reading
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Edna O'Brien's prose lines up words and sentences like smart, spirited children on school photo day
#writing #reading #books #bookstodon #literature #EdnaOBrien #IrishLiterature #IrishBooks
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Edna O'Brien's prose lines up words and sentences like smart, spirited children on school photo day
#writing #reading #books #bookstodon #literature #EdnaOBrien #IrishLiterature #IrishBooks
